One of these two is a dreadful spiv and crook. The other is Arthur Daley.
That’s Luis Barcenas, former Treasurer of the ruling Francoist successor Popular Party in Spain and long time confidante of Prime Minister Rajoy, happily now in prison for his part in a corruption scandal in which, over twenty years, hundreds of millions of euros in kickbacks from taxpayer-funded projects were channelled into the Popular Party coffers, and then doled out in secret payments to party leaders. Rajoy himself had to give evidence in court and the judgement made plain he was not believed.
This is the obvious cause of the no confidence motion that may lead to the Popular Party being removed from power tomorrow. The power of the brown envelope may yet save Rajoy, and the constitutional role of a monarchy which is itself financially corrupt will also come into play.
It says everything about the state of Spanish politics, that in responding in Parliament to the charge of corruption in the no-confidence debate today, Rajoy should turn to the leader of the opposition and declaim “And who do you think you are, Mother Theresa? Your hands are not so clean”. It says even more about Spain that this has not caused shock and “you are corrupt too” is not seen as a wildly inappropriate defence. It is true that the Socialist Party has no shortage of its own skeletons.
What may bring down Rajoy is the fact that the Basque parties, whose support Rajoy had bought with subsidies even more obvious than those lavished by May on the DUP, cannot be seen to prop up Rajoy after his enthusiastic policy of clubbing Catalan grandmothers over the head and imprisoning Catalan leaders. Only the neo-con fake opposition Ciudadanos, originally sponsored and financed by the German BND security service to head off Podemos’ perceived threat to the Euro, is doing its utmost to maintain Merkel’s close ally in power.
If Rajoy finally pays a political price for his appalling persecution of the Catalans it will be a moment of joy, even though the Socialists who would replace him have themselves been shamefully playing to Spanish Nationalist opinion throughout the crisis. But the downfall of one of the nastiest and most vicious and corrupt politicians in power that Europe has seen in decades is nevertheless devoutly to be wished.
The House of Lords debated WW1 yesterday.
Lord Elton, now aged 88 –
My Lords, I too will trespass on your Lordships’ patience. I had not expected to be here and I have not written a speech but, like the fathers of my noble friend Lord Cope and the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, my father would not speak to me about the First World War. He too was in Mesopotamia. I asked him why he would not talk and he said that it was a very unpleasant experience and he did not wish to repeat it. However, my mother told me that he had his last nightmare about the war when he was 81 years old—six months before he died.
That is relevant to this debate because his service was in Mesopotamia, where the vast majority of the troops were Indian, and very gallant they were. They had a very rough time. The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, told us that they did not know where they were going when they got into the ships. The captains and the War Office did not know either because Delhi and Westminster had not agreed the eventual objective or purpose of the expedition. It is the most extraordinary story. It is well worth reading about it and I hope that we will come back to it on another occasion.
The other thing about my father is that he told my sister, to whom he did speak, that he was the only survivor of his sixth-form year at Rugby College. All the others died. That was the scale of it. The Grim Reaper had a barrowful of bodies every day. We are talking about a tragedy. Of course, there was glory and victory but it was a desperate total tragedy, and I add my plea for a commemoration of it year on year for the next century so that we do not fall into that awful pit again. We tremble on the edge of it as I speak because people think that things can be solved with slaughter, when in fact they can be solved only with patience and love.That is not the speech that I meant to make but I have made it as a tribute to all those gallant people. Many of them were ignorant of the purposes for which they fought and many others had courageous patriotism and heroic aspirations for the future. The sacrifice of all those people meant that we are here in a place where it is possible to influence the future history of the world and ensure that such a thing never happens again.’
Let us hope that IT (another world war) never happens again.
PS Lord Ashton responded to the debate. He was CEO of Warren Buffet’s insurance activities at Lloyds. Last year Berkshire Hathaway’s revenue was $242 billion.
An interesting – and depressing – piece by Patrick Cockburn in the Independent this morning, summarising an Amnesty International report on the aftermath of the NATO assault on Raqqa a year ago:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/us-coalition-raqqa-isis-civilian-deaths-amnesty-international-report-uk-france-a8383416.html
Contrary to NATO claims about ‘precision bombing’, the entire city was devastated.
“Air and artillery strikes by the US and its allies inflicted devastating loss of life on civilians in the Isis-held city of Raqqa, according to an Amnesty International report. It contradicts claims by the US, along with Britain and France, that they precisely targeted Isis fighters and positions during the four month siege that destroyed large swathes of the city.
‘On the ground in Raqqa we witnessed a level of destruction comparable to anything we have seen in decades of covering the impact of wars,’ says Donatella Rovera, a senior crisis response adviser at Amnesty. She says that the coalition’s claim that it had conducted a precision bombing campaign that caused few civilian casualties does not stand up to scrutiny. She quotes a senior US military officer as saying that ‘more artillery shells were launched into Raqqa than anywhere since the end of the Vietnam war’.”
Reports like this have a tendency to disappear quickly. Catch it while you can . . .
Similar to Hafez al-Assad’s treatment of Hama full with Muslim Brotherhood in 1981. No moral superiority of US mil., only in Hollywood movies and Western MSN.
Thanks, deep state US, ever since the assassination of JFK in 1963. LBJ – good boy- immediately pored thousands of regular US troops in Vietnam and ordered CIA and FBI to deal with domestic opposition leader Goldwater. Recently neither Obama nor Trump could make a dent in US deep state lukewarm dirty dominance world war. The Clinton’s and Bush’s were good boys: they obeyed from the get go.
The PLA loves US deep state stupidity: they are fighting Russia for them- their closest enemy.
Might be time for a “Kissinger mark II”: separate US and China, this time to keep Russia ticking. Trump tried, but the FBI, DoJ, CIA etc. where busy helping Bibi against big bad……Iran (??!).
Ovet and over. Assad bad. Change the record.
@ Antonyl June 5, 2018 at 09:25
‘..LBJ – good boy- immediately pored thousands of regular US troops in Vietnam and ordered CIA and FBI to deal with domestic opposition leader Goldwater…’Yes, indeed; and apart from his complicity in the JFK assassination, he poured the US Military into Vietnam (JFK had pledged to pull out of Vietnam) on the back of the ‘Gulf of Tonkin’ LIE.
LBJ also arranged with the M*ssad that he would send the USS Liberty unarmed spy ship to sail in international waters off the Egyptian coast during the 1967 Six-Day War, that Is*ael would attack it, sink it and leave no survivors, and it was going to be blamed on Egypt. The US would then nuke Egypt in ‘retaliation’.
US A4 nuclear armed planes were actually on the way to bomb Egypt from the US Sixth Fleet and from a US base in North Africa, and were recalled with three minutes to spare, as the Liberty refused to sink, and got out an SOS (‘Operation Cyanide’, Peter Hounam).
It is extremely important to get this info out to as many people as possible, as if most US people knew the facts, support for Is*raeli abominations against Palestinians would be largely curtailed.
‘Like’ !
Runner 77
I was told by Islamists back in 2007 ” They’re going to give us some territory.” One of the noblest traits of the USUKIS hegemony is promising land which doesn’t belong to them to people who they want to do them a service and then depriving them of their promise by some act of fate. one would have thought that after a millennium of colonial treachery political Islam would have sussed it out. But apparently not. the objective of course is to utilise the rendition-brain-washed to prepare the land for physical and emotional destruction , leaving the bare resources available for extraction without anyone there to oppose.
You might say that Libya was work in progress, or you might say WWI was work in progress, or you might say that the Crusades were work in progress. One thing’s for sure, if you want to know what Erdogan and may were plotting last month in London think about China in a hundred years time after Myanmar, Bangladesh and Thailand have been raised to the ground. Aren’t you excited that this new piece of work in progress was started when you were around? There’s something to tell your grand-kids. Or not, even if you survived.
“Oh Scotland, don’t you dare! – Part 1
Posted on Monday, June 4, 2018 by bill
The 354-page report from the Scottish Growth Commission – Scotland – the new case for optimism: A strategy for inter-generational economic renaissance (released May 25, 2018) – could have been published by the IMF given its adherence to the flawed neoliberal macroeconomic framework that that institution imposes on everything. It is too generous to call the Growth Commission’s work ‘analysis’ – a series of unfounded assertions with logical extrapolation from that flawed basis is more accurate. If Scotland were to create an independent nation on the basis of the ‘blueprint’ outlined in the Growth Commission’s Report then it would soon be heading into a mediocre oblivion – a future where it would be unable to effectively counteract the fluctuations of non-government sector spending and a future where fiscal policy was forced to be pro-cyclical. Scotland would end up another failed austerity state. This is Part 1 of a two-part series where I examine the Report and its implications. In Part 2, I will examine the currency issues in more detail. I hope to be in Scotland in early October as part of my next speaking tour of Europe – more details later.”
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=39501&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+economicoutlook%2FFYvo+%28billy+blog%29
Thanks. An interesting man
‘(Photo taken in August 2013 in Kakadu National Park, NT, Australia)
Bill Mitchell is a Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia. He is also a professional musician and plays guitar with the Melbourne Reggae-Dub band – Pressure Drop. The band was popular around the live music scene in Melbourne in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The band reformed in late 2010. You can find music and other things on his Home Page.’ http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?page_id=2
I like his viewpoint although his pieces are rather long. eg
Austerity is the enemy of our grandchildren as public infrastructure degrades
December 14, 2016
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=34963
British Tories reject the ‘free market’ neoliberal myth
December 11, 2017
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=37522
Sharp Ears.
If I tell my wife someone was an interesting man, she falls about laughing. Poof! How could a man of all things be interesting? I must have been raised in a feminist family where the parsley in the garden was allowed to flourish too much. But as a man of course I agree with you. Why should a man not be classed as interesting? Why does Britain have a female prime minister? So that the British males can be collectively self-chastised? Is this a mechanism by which moral and intellectual thinking can be repressed?
“In Britain, Austerity Is Changing Everything”
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/world/europe/uk-austerity-poverty.html#click=https://t.co/UIMxwEIUCG
Thanks for posting the url to that article James, it was a very interesting read.
Robert Kennedy was assassinated 50 years ago today. RIP.
Some truths from Edward Curtin.
‘When he was assassinated by a bullet to the back of his head on June 5, 1968, not by the accused patsy Sirhan Sirhan, who was standing in front of RFK, but by a conspiracy that clearly implicates U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies, not only did a precious and good man die, but so too did any chance for significant political change through the official political system, short of a miracle. We are still waiting for such a miracle.
Robert F. Kennedy’s death, following as it did the assassination by U.S. government forces of Dr. Martin Luther King two months earlier, marked an emphatic end to the sense of hope that marked the election to the presidency of his brother John in 1960. Henceforth, efforts to change the political system from within became moot; the coup d’état effected on November 22, 1963 with the CIA’s assassination of JFK was signed and sealed. RFK’s murder added the period to this sentence of rule by murderous deep state forces. And despite valiant efforts of dissent from outside the system since, the systemic war machine has rolled on and the economic stranglehold of the elites has tightened over the decades. An RFK presidency was this country’s last chance from within to save itself from the tyranny that has ensued.’
The Blatant Conspiracy behind Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s Assassination
by Edward Curtin / June 5th, 2018
https://dissidentvoice.org/2018/06/the-blatant-conspiracy-behind-senator-robert-f-kennedys-assassination/
PS The ghastly Clinton was on ITV this morning flogging his book. He could be a puppet. A Spitting Image of himself. He speaks but he is dead.
He says he couldn’t get elected now because he doesn’t like humiliating people the way Trump does. Definitely a dementia case I’m afraid.
He didn’t mind humiliating Lewinsky. Must have gone soft. How much did Trump pay the model to accuse him of sexual prowess? sorry sexual impropriety. It is of course highly humiliating that the Clintons were exposed as manufacturing concrete bunkers in Syria for Al Qaida through French company Lafarge.
RFK’s son visited Sirhan in prison for three hours last year and is asking that the investigation be reopened.
https://whowhatwhy.org/2018/06/05/was-sirhan-hypnotically-programmed-to-assassinate-rfk/
When I am talking to someone who holds that Lee Harvey Oswald was the loan assassin of JFK and the spate of 1960’s assassinations in general were not conspiracies, I always start talking them through the RFK case. By the time they assassinated RFK, they were so cock sure they could act with impunity they weren’t even trying to put up much of a pretence.
@ Sharp Ears June 5, 2018 at 09:35
If you want the truth about the Clinton’s, read ‘Access Denied: For Reasons of National Security’ by Cathy O’Brien and Mark Phillips, and ‘Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion’ by Gary Webb (who later ‘committed suicide’ by two bullets to the back of his head).
For your diaries:
1600 GMT next Tuesday for the Don-Kim summit in Singapore.
Could they run the proverbial whelk stall?
Government loses £2.1bn on RBS stake sale
50 minutes ago
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44366731
You can bet that some on the stock exchange have made money from the sale.
RBS is an example of what socialism looks like in practice.
Anyone that supports Corbyn or Sanders should examine RBS in some detail – because what you see in RBS is what you will see across the entire society and economy should these people obtain power.
The great irony is that not only was RBS “rescued” directly, it was also “rescued” indirectly via QE – this had the effect of raising asset prices to the extent that young people can, in aggregate, no longer afford a home. So young people, in aggregate, are attracted to policies guaranteed to worsen their situation. All hail the education system. The idiocracy is almost upon us.
According to A. Kaletsky, when Northern Rock collapsed the Bank of England ‘persuaded’ the British government to give {reluctantly} an open-ended, but temporary, guarantee to all British financial institutions.
This stopped the bank run and stabilised the financial system.
In the US, H. Paulson did not ‘take this lesson on board’ and this, plus the speculation in oil prices, led to the ‘credit crunch’ in the US.
A. Kaletsky: Capitalism 4.0. P140.
“Guarantees would have been the easiest form of intervention to present politically because they would have emphasised the true purpose of government assistance to the banking system: to prevent the savings of depositors – especially wholesale depositors such as corporations, foundations, savings institutions, and local governments. These depositors would have seen trillions of dollars in payrolls, pensions, and working capital evaporate if the banks were allowed to fail. Guarantees would have underlined the fact that the main beneficiaries of all bank rescues were not greedy bankers or shareholders but wholesale depositors whose money is not covered by retail guarantees.”
A. Kaletsky: Capitalism 4.0. P150.
It would have been alright if the government had just guaranteed the deposits and not the interests of the shareholders. Either a bank has to be regulated to prevent the risk bank colapse or the bank can be bailed out or it can be left to collapse. So far governments hve ducked having to make this choice leaving us with contiuous bailouts by default in the form of quantative easing.
The banking was an example of what capitalism looked like in practice!! So there.
So you think the activities of RBS represent socialism? They obviously do not.
And the bailout also look extremely capitalist to me in that it bailed out the wealthy which is a capitalist manoeuvre going back to the British India Company and the abolition of slavery.
“RBS is an example of what socialism looks like in practice.”
This is sarcasm right? For it can’t be anything else. For a start RBS is to pay a $500 million dollar fine for mis-selling financial products. Then there were the vicitms of PPI.
RBS are like any other bank, it’s all about making money, the customer comes a distant second, as for RBS and socialism, well they’re closing at least 60 remote branches that are life lines to communities who need a bank, not very socialist at all.
@ Loony June 5, 2018 at 11:45
Ah, gotcha. So ‘piratisation’ is a ‘Socialist’ phenomena?
Silly me, thinking it was an extreme right-wing ploy to plunder the State enterprises. Even the hideous Ted Heath was against it, saying it was ‘selling off the family silver’.
Actually, I think that was Harold Macmillan, Paul.
It was an election sweety, sharp ears, very likely an autumn GE.
@ Sharp Ears June 5, 2018 at 10:27
Just as they have in the past, with every ‘piratisation’ being massively undersold.
Kickbacks, anyone?
Bill Mitchell is a Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia. He is also a professional musician and plays guitar with the Melbourne Reggae-Dub band’
Mitchell should stick to music. His policy suggestions for East Timor would result in further insecurity. Border districts rely on trade conducted in $US and IND Rp, the black market for imports is greater than the official Gov stats. Take this advantage away by introducing a new currency and the city based elites to whom Mitchell is writing will be faced with disobedience, if not outright revolt, on the western border.
Short and sweet.
‘Retribution
THOUGH the mills of God grind slowly,
Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience he stands waiting,
With exactness grinds he all.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
1846
Plutarch (originally) + Agatha Christie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mills_of_God
“Stalin’s Granny was General Secretary of the Scottish Labour Party, 1977-78, at 26 yrs old.”
http://www.drsallybaker.com/uncategorized/the-most-dangerous-man-in-the-world-the-scottish-play/
The Leaderene Mk11 – what she’s up to.
Brexit: Theresa May under fire over plans to overturn all 15 Lords defeats on EU withdrawal bill in single day
This shows total contempt of parliament….this piece of legislation will have huge consequences for the future of our country’
18 hours ago
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-theresa-may-eu-withdrawal-bill-house-of-lords-defeats-customs-union-single-market-a8382906.html
Theresa May told to ‘get a grip’ on rail crisis by regional news titles
The Guardian
11 hours ago
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jun/05/theresa-may-told-to-get-a-grip-on-rail-crisis-by-regional-news-titles
The clown, Grayling, she appointed as Transport Minister is about to make an announcement on the third runway at Heathrow.
She is packing her suitcase again for another journey by plane. This time to Quebec for the G7 8th/9th June. What a waste of time and fossil fuel.
https://g7.gc.ca/en/
You forgot breath
The elected Theresa May is going to overturn the decision of the unelected House of Cronies blocking the decision of a democratic referendum. You’ve got to laugh a British democracy.
Last weekend’s leak of the Brexit department’s assessment of a no-deal exit was met with much Rumplestiltskin-like jumping up and down by Brexiteers raging yet again about project fear.
What the Rumples chose to ignore is that this report was commissioned by none other than David Davis himself, from the civil servants he personally selected and appointed to his department. Also, that the report was leaked to, and splashed across the front page, not of the Guardian but of the arch-Brexit Sunday Times.
The report tallies with the picture that has emerged from every industry, the Bank of England, research scientists, the NHS, security and crime agencies – everywhere that matters – on the catastrophic repercussions of a no-deal Brexit.
It’s long past time the flat earth Rumples removed heads from posteriors and conceded that Boris and Jacob are not capable of, or even intent on, shepherding “ver peeple” into some kindly, prosperous New Jerusalem or re-run of the heyday of the British Empire. Those who thought such things were possible are products of the black and white tv generation and will mercifully soon be moving on to that great British Empire in the sky. One of the only consoling thoughts after reading last weekend’s report.
Great news from the ONS. The population of England will increase by three million by 2026. We will have to build three Birminghams to cope with it. A staggering 10 million people now in the UK were born outside of the UK.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/russia-jeremy-corbyn_uk_5aa46df6e4b07047bec712d4
Caroline Lucas (our one Green MP’s) opinion on the Skripal affair and Russia.
I can’t claim to know much if anything about Lucas, but I had hoped for something better than this. In the Westmonster game too long and the Stockholm syndrome is settling in?
green in more senses than one
Very, very disappointed. At least Jeremy Corbyn was prepared to think about justice. Parliamentary groupthink… After Blair, she ought to know better.
@ Titus June 5, 2018 at 14:22
She’s just another Russophobic pr*t, seemingly unaware that ‘allegations’ don’t equate to facts.
The latest on the Neil Clark – Oliver Kamm affair (appeared on Fundrazr last month) :
“LATEST UPDATE: 25th May 2018
Oliver Kamm’s solicitors have suggested a ‘without prejudice save as to costs’ round table meeting in London to attempt to settle the case. This is the first time we’ve had any real substantive engagement on the settlement front from the defendant’s side. I am wary about such a meeting as the tactic from the defendant’s side has been, at least up to now, to try and ramp up my costs as much as possible and a meeting would cost a tidy sum, with no guarantee of success. However, the court does encourage both parties to try and settle and if no attempts are made then it can count against the party which doesn’t try to reach a settlement. My solicitors had advised me to agree to a meeting, but if it is clear that there is going to be no serious attempt to agree to cede ground then we can simply walk out. The defendant’s side will no doubt be hoping that the cost of continuing with my action will pressurise me into agreeing a settlement some way short of what we have claimed for. Which is why I am making a fresh appeal for your support. The sole criteria for deciding whether we accept whatever the defendant’s side offers ought to be how close it comes to what we have asked for in our claim. So the more money we have behind us if/when a meeting with the defendant and his legal representatives takes place, the stronger our position will be.
All donations, large or small at this important time are hugely appreciated (in addition to donating via Fundrazr, and via my blog ”
It also appears that Clark is – for the moment – no longer suing Murdoch/Times newspaper but concentrating his action on Oliver Kamm. A bit of a climb-down but I suppose Kamm has shallower pockets than Murdoch.
Please donate generously (to Oliver Kamm I mean).
What news about Galloway and Craig v. Philip Cross?
“Please donate generously”
Cheers hababurp, donation on its way to Neil Clark.
Ditto.
Thanks for the find.
For more info: https://fundrazr.com/41BlC1?ref=ab_1mqmlaVa83f1mqmlaVa83f
I wager Oliver Kamm and Philip Cross will turn out to be the same person.
Yes, thank you bj. That’s exactly where I got the update from.
“The defendant’s side will no doubt be hoping that the cost of continuing with my action will pressurise me into agreeing a settlement some way short of what we have claimed for.”
I’ve been unable to find out what Clark has claimed for (he’s presumably after money).
The expression is ‘Nosey Parker’.
Hardly, Sharpie, considering much of this affair has been on the internet and the theme has been bruited on here recently. As for how much money he’s after, that will come out once the case goes to trial (if it does) and I do think it’ll be interesting if only because it’ll give people an idea of how much Clark feels he and his reputation are worth.
In the light of your penetrating “exposés” of people in the public eye (their income, their wives and relatives, the jobs they do, etc, etc) on this public blog, are you really the right person to call others Nosey Parkers?
I still don’t understand why the legal action was only started at the end of 2017 whereas there was already talk of legal action back in 2006 (google it and see for yourselves). Why the 11 year delay? What was Clark waiting for?
Please subscribe generously, you’ve read Clark’s appeal!
”whereas there was already talk of legal action back in 2006 (google it and see for yourselves)”
google brings up nothing. what are you talking about?
Try googling “Neil Clark Oliver Kamm” and it comes up as the first entry.
He self describes as an anti-war anti-neoconservative, reflecting the view of most normal people in this country and the world. Certainly the view of the guy whose blog you’re on.
Thanks for the ‘heads up’, Chas/Habbs – donation on its way to Neil Clark.
The sauds have major holdings in the MSM, nothing forthcoming re mbs saga there. Nothing of substance anywhere else either
Perhaps CM can throw some light, with millions in Yemen hoping for an early eid?
The latest is, he is cowering and holed up on his yacht somewhere in the red sea, he no longer can trust anyone in the “kingdom”. Yanks have advised him to cool it off and stop acting like a bloody king, or even a crown prince.
The simple fact is given the current climate of fear and foreboding in the mid east any bad news concerning “our allies” ie the poodles set in place to rule and keep the natives in line, is unwelcome to the plutocrats and co, it is not the power of the al saud pederasts which is maintaining the black out.
Oh no another 60 million+ racists and fascists and have just been unearthed. This time from elements of both the left and right wings.
Italy stands on the verge of deporting up to 500,000 illegal immigrants and fronting up to the EU. Naturally the Financial Times calls them barbarians, and naturally the Germans threaten them with savage economic consequences and Jean Clause Juncker calls Italians lazy and corrupt.
Just imagine the outrage if Germans threatened say Somalians, if the FT called them barbarians and the EU called them lazy and corrupt. But not to worry we are only talking about Italians here so there are no problems at all in this kind of naked racism and aggression.
The EU is dead in the water – if the British cannot finish it then the Italians will try. If they fail then the Poles and the Hungarians will lead the charge. Even if it turns out that the Europeans are too weak to save themselves then President Trump will ride to the rescue on the reincarnation of Paul Revere’s horse.
Is it not somewhat odd that everyone despises the EU except for the Germans and a few well placed traitors and idiots in all of the other satellite countries. Oh how I wonder why that could be.
I don’t think the Poles will do it as they get so much of the gibs (although grant you they have had to put up with a great deal of national humiliation)
“The EU is dead in the water – if the British cannot finish it then the Italians will try. If they fail then the Poles and the Hungarians will lead the charge. Even if it turns out that the Europeans are too weak to save themselves then President Trump will ride to the rescue on the reincarnation of Paul Revere’s horse.”
Wishful thinking, and the only thing Trump will be riding is Stormy Daniels over Old Resolute, oops thats already happened.
:
Paul Revere’s horse would run off to join the British on spotting a frame like Donald Trump’s approaching.
On the other hand a (large) horse is probably the only creature that would permit Trump to mount it. Melania certainly won’t.
.
We are being given the cold shoulder already and Treeza hasn’t sorted out the exit strategy yet.
http://news.sky.com/story/european-businesses-advised-to-avoid-using-british-parts-ahead-of-brexit-11395908
Meanwhile in olde England a man sits like Buddha in a 10 foot cell, an innocent man in a living hell.
A man whose real crime was to attempt to tell the truth using the vocabulary that he picked up thanks to the English state education system. A man whose proximate crime was contempt of court. Yea though we wait for the Judge to arrest himself and consign himself to jail. For it is objectively provable that the actions of the Judge magnified the issues he was seeking to address by many order of magnitude.
Don;t it make you feel ashamed to live in a land where Justice is a game?
Justice requires the arrest of the Judge. The Law however simply requires that both barrels of the law be fired into the faces of the poor at point blank range.
Don’t it make you feel ashamed…?
He was locked up because he tried to interfere with our judicial process. His actions could have given the defence the excuse to claim a retrial. He deserves to be rotting in a cell for his stupidity. It has nothing to do with any political pressure. I suggest reading ‘thesecretbarrister’ blog to get a blow by blow account of exactly why he was charged so quickly and why his sentence was justified.
Well said DuplicitousDemocracy, this so called “innocent man” also attended a hate filled rally in Poland organised by Pediga, he has absolutely no credibility.
Aint no doubt that “thesecretbarrister” is worth a read if only for the dripping contempt and revulsion in which he holds all those whose language is limited by the state education system.
Aint no doubt that the prisoner is guilty of contempt of court. Equally there is no doubt at all that the Judge, if held to the same standards as those applied to the prisoner, is also guilty of contempt of court. So, when is the Judge going to demand his own arrest? That he will not do so tells you all you need to know about British Justice, and tells you all you need to know as to how the Law trumps justice at every turn.
This is the second time he has almost forced a retrial in very important court cases. Do you want paedophiles to be brought to justice or not? Thesecretbarrister merely states the legal position and points to how and why the cretinous bigot with less intelligence than a pigeon almost cost the taxpayers of this country hundreds of thousands, if not millions of pounds.
The convict in question was fairly recently photographed in Israel on a Merkava tank, brandishing a loaded M16 rifle. Much the pity he wasn’t doing the same in 2006, when they were being routinely destroyed.This just about sums up his mentality but I’m sure he will look equally comfortable wearing his prison attire.
In reaching his sentencing decision Judge Marson observed that the actions of Robinson carried a risk of costing the taxpayer “hundreds of thousands of pounds”
The merit of this observation was predicted on the fact that Judge Marson had previously imposed reporting restrictions on the case. In other words the Judge believed that Justice would be served by maintaining privacy until such time as a specified milestone in either the trial in question or a linked trial had been achieved,
It is manifestly obvious that the actions of the Judge have cost the taxpayer much more than the sum he claimed to be concerned with. These additional costs have arisen as a consequence of both disruption to public spaces and policing costs of the numerous protests that have occurred as a direct consequence of this particular judicial decision.
Any judicial privacy has blown out of the water as a direct consequence of the Contempt of Court judgement, This is evidenced both by ongoing protests and by the fact that almost 600,000 people have signed a petition calling for the release of the prisoner. This figure of 600,000 contrasts with less than 10,000 people who were paying attention to the initial act of contempt.
Therefore if justice is to be applied on an equal basis and applying the same rules to everyone then the Judge is in contempt of his own court. Given that the Judge is the beneficiary of extensive education, legal training and knowledge of the law then these all serve as aggravating factors. Thus the contempt of the Judge can be reasonably viewed as being far more egregious than the contempt of the original party.
The fact that Robinson is viewed by some (including you) as “a cretinous bigot with less intelligence than a pigeon” acts as a mitigating factor.
The fact that he was photographed sitting on a tank in Israel is entirely irrelevant – unless you are suggesting either that the Judge is an anti semite or that English law should be used as a weapon to punish people professing an entirely legal pro Israel stance.
For Loony.
Paint it whichever way you like, the agenda portrayed by the inmate is of bringing sex predators to justice, yet his actions could have resulted in exactly the opposite. My concern is for the victims of such crimes, yours is for a racist agitator who tries to incite others in to some sort of lynch mob mentality. I don’t see him campaigning against ALL crimes of this nature, only if the suspects have a particular background. To the victims, the result is the same, a life of turmoil. The inmate on top of a tank is very relevant. It shows that he openly approves the subjugation of one particular people in the Middle East. There is a common trend in his behaviour, you can see it but wish to ignore it, I see it for what it is and that’s using the misery of the vulnerable victims for his own benefit.
The police, social services and numerous other organisations have let these victims down and when the culprits are finally brought to account for their crimes, the inmate deliberately and knowingly attempts to create publicity for himself with no regard for the victims.
That is why he is currently an inmate and rightly so.
I__ael denies entry to anyone who works for War on Want or the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, because those organisations support BDS.
But after Britain refuses to renew the visa of mafia boss Boris Abramovich when he was using his Russian passport, all he needs to do is get an I__aeli one and then he’s welcome to come to Britain without a visa.
Actually, I think you’ll find that there is a list of countries – drawn up by the EU and agreed by the EU member states – which stipulates which third countries’ nationals need a visa to enter the EU space and which don’t. It so happens that Russia is in the list of countries which requires its nationals to have visas (in the same way as EU nationls need a visa to ebter Russia). The opposite is the case for Israeli nationals – they don’t need a visa for short-term entry into the EU space and EU nationals don’t need a visa for short-term visits to the EU.
Hence your strictures against the UK are misguided. Blame the EU if you have to blame someone.
“short-term visits to Israel”
One should add that, in the case of dual nationals of countries A and B, you have to use passport A when entering or leaving country A and passport B when entering or leaving country B. In the case you mention, however, the person concerned is entering country C (ie the UK) and is therefore free to use either his passport from country A (Russia) or his passport from country B (Israel). Do you understand now?
Yes, I am quite happy to blame the EU – although it would not appear to be one of their major crimes!!
Elsewhere I read that Poland plays host to “hate filled rallies” What kind of person would possibly want to be in a voluntary union with hate filled people?
US envoy to Israel trying to ‘bully’ and ‘gaslight’ media – Israeli journalist to RT
5 Jun 2018
The US ambassador to Israel is trying to “bully” media into not reporting on Gaza atrocities, and to control the spin on events, an Israeli journalist told RT after the infamous comment on reporters keeping their “mouths shut.”
Journalist David Sheen was responding to a speech made by the American Ambassador to Israel David M. Friedman, in which he warned journalists to “keep their mouths shut” and stop criticizing Israel in their reporting of events on the Gaza border.
“Essentially it’s gaslighting; trying to bully the media into stopping all reporting” of Israel’s attacks on Gaza, Sheen told RT.
“We’re living in an era when it is nearly impossible for anyone to criticize the Israeli government’s actions no matter how deplorable they may be, because they will be instantly be accused of racism— instead of examining are the actions of the government based on racism,” he added.
/..
https://www.rt.com/news/428830-us-israel-reporters-mouth-shut/
Cor blimey, ‘e’s at it again!
George Galloway launches legal proceedings for defamation against – of all people! – Jon Lansman, the founder of Momentum.
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/ex-labour-and-respect-mp-george-galloway-launches-defamation-action-against-momentum-founder-jon-lansman-over-antisemitism-claim-1.457717
YCNMIU !
George is right.
If, to avoid being labeled an anti-semite, you need to have intimate knowledge of someone’s dick or of their spiritual convictions, before you can or cannot call them an ‘Israel-fanatic’ (Israel is a country, people can be fanatic about a country), is idiocy.
It would require one, prior to making such an utterance, to consider the listener’s conviction. This in itself would be a discriminatory act.
George is right. Zionism is like Ebola. The Zionist establishment forces its way into the anti-establishment institutions like the Opposition or the Mosque, by means of false flag attacks, like Jo Cox’s murder, or 7/7, carrying its lethal germs with it. The establishment informs the opposition of certain bad deeds they’ve ” found out” i.e. made up about someone in the anti-establishment institution, and Bingo! suddenly the anti-establishment institution has Ebola / Zionism and within 2 days it is dead. ( as an anti-establishment institution ). If salt loses its flavour , with what will you salt it?
I do admire Craig’s resilience here. Ebola doesn’t discriminate so you have to discriminate for it. Support for the bloodthirsty apartheid junta that is Israel requires the same drastic action as Ebola. No, you can’t attend the body of the dead. No, you can’t get together, and no you can’t leave your house. Isolation is the only remedy. Craig has proved what can be done using insistence and politeness, the best few quid I’ve ever spent.
On My Last Note Re the Amazing Dumfries March / Rally –
Three points..
1, The last rally was Just Huge 80.000.
But.. wee had to walk past THESE IDIOTS – Plainly.. No need to watch it all.
2, ..And the Difference of the Indy Crowd –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsM5cXUv8DE&t=8s
3. I think my video of Craig Is Sorted… Not great..had a bit of Coughing …trying to Avoid the wummin who kept walking back n forwards. But we can Hear the Speech..a great one too –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GKgRIgyxPk&t=193s
1, The last rally was Just Huge 80.000.
But.. wee had to walk past THESE IDIOTS – Plainly.. No need to watch it all…Three mins is More than Enough
No wonder I forgot to Paste…But Here It Be ..Eejits. –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud7goktPW3Q&t=93s
interesting close up on the forces of reaction. they are not flattered by the magnifying glass.
Many of them seem to possess a limited vocabulary and also need to reduce their intake of pies.
Bilderberg again, starting tomorrow in Turin for three days. All the ‘Bs’ will be there – the bankers and the billionaires.
‘This year’s gathering, which will be the 66th annual meeting of the mysterious group, takes place in Turin, Italy, between June 7-10. The meeting will be attended by American and European business leaders, current and former government officials, politicians, university professors, think tank analysts and even some journalists — but don’t expect them to talk about it in public. What happens at the Bilderberg meeting stays at the Bilderberg meeting.
Topping the agenda will be the challenges of “populism in Europe,” “inequality” and the “future of work.” The group will also discuss the scourge of “fake news” and a “post-truth” world, as well as the state of play in the US before the 2018 midterm elections and US world leadership more generally. The list of topics also includes “Russia,” but it provides no further detail.’
[..]
Among the 2018 attendees are former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) David Petraeus, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Governor of the Bank of England Mark J. Carney, CEO of Ryanair Michael O’Leary and CEO of Airbus Thomas Enders.
Virulent anti-Russia Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum will also be there, alongside her husband Radoslaw Sikorski, who was forced to resign as Poland’s minister for foreign affairs in 2015 after damaging recordings of him and other politicians were leaked to the public.’
https://www.rt.com/usa/428826-bilderberg-group-secretive-meeting-turin/
The swampcreatures ball.
BBC Radio 4 News Briefing 05:30am mentioned that BiBi will be foaming about Iran in Lawless London today,
Auntie BBC, the powerful state broadcaster managed to mention that Treeza might mention unlawful killings in Gaza.
I have no complaints against a state that feels isolated amongst its neighbours and must shoot potential terrorists, after all there are precedents, and Albania is doing fairly well now that they have stopped shooting their tourists from Corfu & locals. [https://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/11/magazine/albania-opens-its-door-a-crack.html]
The 05:40am News Briefing short sport segment managed in a few seconds to gloss over the announced Argentinian football team BDS effort, I listened to the BBC Radio 4 Toady program longer sport news at 06:30 and they did not consider it worthy of a mention! Compliments, BBC. Reported. Check. Buried. Check.
Some [propaganda?] newspapers in occupied/shared Al-Quds are pushing the spin that this is a messy ‘safety’ issue, some ‘Argentinian’ papers such as thebubble.com are not aware of anything [propaganda?], whilst the South American news have a much deeper [accurately?] nuanced point of view – it isnt just Messi’s safety, there is the genuine element of revulsion, shock and horror, but the spirit of sport is still (just) alight, the two teams may well meet again soon, perhaps once the Albanian tourist welcome shootings are moderated. Why does the Beeb not analyse the real reasons and the possible positive future? [propaganda?]
https://www.clarin.com/deportes/mundial-2018/argentina-israel-suspendido-amistoso-jerusalen_0_ryvceOEgQ.html
How dare he show his face and how dare she entertain him.
Netanyahu is being received by May at No 10. He is on tour with his anti-Iran rhetoric.
‘Netanyahu flew on Monday morning to Berlin, where he is due to meet Angela Merkel, before flying to Paris to speak with Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday. He will then travel to Britain for a meeting with Theresa May.’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/04/israels-netanyahu-on-europe-trip-to-lobby-leaders-against-iran
Mr Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of the internationally recognised State of Israel, has every right to visit London, the capital city of one of Israel’s close allies, and Theresa May, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, has every right to receive him.
Can the West really trust Iran?
A lot more than we can trust Israel and the Saudis.
Can Iran really trust the West after 1953?
When was the last time Iran started a war?
How many terrorist attacks in Europe have been sponsored by Iran or carried out by Shias?
“When was the last time Iran started a war?”
Didn’t they attack the Greeks some time back?
Can Iran really trust Israel?
How long has this ATOS/C(R)APITA scandal gone on?
Atos and Capita ‘warned to improve Pip disability tests’
05 June 2018
Atos and Capita must improve the delivery of Personal Independence Payments (Pip) or face losing their contracts, MP Frank Field has said.
The government says it is looking at extending the firms’ contracts by two years to “better allow for a stable transition to any new provision”.
And it was developing IT systems to move some of the work in-house.
Work and pensions committee chairman Mr Field said the ministerial statement was a clear warning to the companies.
/..
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-44367420
Field’s warning is an empty threat. To whom would HMG award new contracts? Everything has been outsourced. The function should be carried out by the DWP itself.
The minister is Esther MvVey. G.d help us all.
Let’s accept for a moment, only for the sake of argument, that the government is out to screw the disabled, it, that this is government policy. How would bringing the assessments back in-house (ie, carried out by DWP civil servants and not by ATOS/Capita) change that?
Fool, the assessments were carried out by doctors. The decisions based on the assessment are and have always been made ‘in house’.
Fool.
In that case I allowed myself to be misled by Sharp Ears’s perhaps deliberately confused presentation. (the “function”).
Is it the case that ATOS/Capita make no use of doctors at all? I know that the first assessments are made by ATOS/Capita staff using a questionnaire; are the completed questionnaire sent directly to the DWP for decision or do they transit through medically qualified people (working for or retained by ATOS/Capita)? Genuine question, btw!
” What doesn’t pay is reporting crime.
Not long ago I read a rather good book about a small number of honest people who did not understand this dirty fact. It was a book telling the stories of the handful of honest and tragically idealistic insiders who blew the whistle about banking fraud and crime during the Global Bank Debt Crisis. It was full of disturbing facts. Not the least of which is that not one of their stories ended well.
All of the stories involved the whistleblower following the law and reporting their concerns. In every story the result was being threatened with punitive, some might say vindictive, legal action by the very banks whose wrong doing they had reported. In every case the ‘Proper Authorities’, in charge of regulating the banks, hung the whistleblowers out to dry.
All the whistleblowers were blackballed from their profession and lost their livelihoods. The majority lost their homes. Another disturbing common thread was that many of the whistleblowers, who had been well paid, and respected employees of the banks, found that as soon as they went public with their complaint, they were accused, by the banks, of being mentally unstable and in need of detention in a mental facility. Many lost their family as a result. In every case the leading politicians of all the major parties in the whistleblowers’ country, ignored the whistleblower and closed ranks with the banks and the regulators. Very often they too would join the banks in solemnly suggesting the Whistleblower had had some sort of tragic mental breakdown and was now unstable or delusional.”
http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2018/06/the-steady-enmity-of-powerful-people/?utm_source=GolemXIV+Subscribers&utm_campaign=b97ba3f550-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f4fa826d3f-b97ba3f550-70527561
A new spin on Victorian “vapours”. When the banks vapourise your money, you get the vapours and you need to go to the loony bin. It’s totally logical, whoever has the stress is obviously to blame. Banks are professional so they never get anything wrong.
In 2008, in our family we had all benefitted from an inheritance from my father. One sister lost money because she had put it into a savings account which refused to pay out the full sum. I lost money on a small house in the Welsh valleys I had invested in for my children. My other sister kept it in her current account and kept it, wee wee, all the way home.
More to the point, I sometimes get tempted to take a ride on the great mortgage ponzi scheme that the Tories resurrected after 2007, so that I could give my children something. but you have to remember that at any second, in any month in any year the great Tory ponzi false deity of the Market might explode in our faces again. They know when They are going to pop it. They buy cheap and sell expensive so it’s totally obvious bust and boom benefits those in the know.
Bilderberg Brown knew full well he was giving fake information, even if he wasn’t privy to the precise moment of the rugs being pulled or the South Seas bubble being pricked same as George Bush was taken by surprise at a Primary school on the day of 9/11. Plainly our leaders ought to govern with their cautious understanding that things probably will go pop from time to time. But instead of focussing entirely on foreigners causing the problems, they should take the measure of the home-grown Bankers, that they will bust the economy when it suits them. Instead, the dire warnings by HMRC and the Bank of England are dismissed by Tory gamblers Fox and Rees-Mogg. Mr May MAKES money when the economy goes wrong!
I’m sorry to read about your family’s misfortunes.
bj
That’s very nice of you… mere bagatelles.
I have the great good fortune to be in a mosque, praying to our Creator in the Holy month of Ramadan. Bank accounts in different places you see, as recommended by the Financial Standards Agency, in case your visa is not working.
One in this life and one in the next. Can’t go wrong.
Best to you and yours!
https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/open-letter-in-support-of-ukrainian-political-prisoners
Love it. USUKIS creates a monster of IS using torture -rendition-chemical brain-washing, then funds it, then obliterates the entire cities and civilian populations of Raqqa and Mosul, to mention two. Where were their royal highnesses and bigwigs when a bit of finger-pointing was required towards the Zionist neo-cons? Funny they pop up now to support Mrs May’s Russia vilification campaign.
So David Davis has three scenario reports on a hard Brexit. One where the port of Dover collapses on day one after Brexit and the M20 is turned into huge lorry carpark park of trucks hoping to get to Europe.
Also within 48 hours the shelves of our supermarkets would be empty of any food stuffs, and a day or two later, our hospitals would run out of medicine, and that’s not even the worse case scenario, which is number three white paper, god only knows what that entails, the poor eating the rich, or worse still Nigel Farage, becomes the leader in the post-apocalyptic wastelands of Britain.
Meanwhile the Labour party’s opposition to this scenario is in care free mode, as it looks likely that Corbyn will set in motion plans to abstain on a HoL amendment to keep the UK in the Single Market post-Brexit.
Scotland can avoid the worst of it by voting for independence a second time around in the near future.
Think Berlin airlift, RepScot ! 🙂