When slavery was abolished in the British Empire, taxpayers paid huge sums in compensation to slave owners for the loss of their “property”. No compensation was ever paid to the slaves for the loss of their freedom.
The problem with that approach is, of course, that the state did not take into account that the “property” of which it was relieving the landowners was acquired as part of an inhuman and immoral situation.
I was considering the same question in relation to the constitutional moves of South Africa to redistribute land without compensation. It seems to me this is plainly morally justified. The only question marks I can see are of practicality, in terms of making sure those taking over the land are trained to keep it properly in production, and that redistribution is not corrupt. Those are not insuperable problems, and I support the South African government in its endeavours.
But I wish to apply the same principle, of the state acting to right historic injustice on behalf of the people, much more widely and in the UK.
I apply precisely the same argument to the great landed estates, particularly but not only in Scotland. I believe the fundamental answer to land reform is confiscation by the state of large estates, and that social justice can never be redressed by the taxpayer simply handing over money to the ultra-wealthy. We have already been doing far too much of that through the bankers’ bailouts.
I have no moral qualms at all about simply taking back the land, whether it be from the Dukes of Sutherland, Buccleuch and Atholl, from a Dutch businessman or from a sheikh. In England the Grosvenor estate, the lands of the Duchy of Cornwall, and similar holdings could be confiscated. I do not see this as harm to the “owners”. Let them work for a living, or try their luck with the benefits claim system. Residential properties in large estates might become council homes, while tenants of commercial properties might pay rents to the council rather than to the Duke of Westminster, and the council use a large portion of that money for homebuilding.
Agricultural land from vast estates might perhaps best be given to the tenant farmers who have rented it. In the Highland glens, there are vast tracts which were once cattle rearing and arable. We have been lied to for generations that these are only fit for moorland for grouse and deer hunting – despite the fact that they are studded with the croft foundations of the cleared populations they once supported, who reared cattle and grew crops. These unfarmed lands should be given free to communities to develop; with assistance for the expensive task of bringing them back into production. That assistance would be a better use of state money than paying “compensation” to the ultra-wealthy.
But it is not only land. I favour nationalisation without compensation of all PFI projects, and of all railways and utilities. The owners have milked the public and the taxpayer far too long. Any business investment carries risk, including political risk. If you misjudge the political risk, your business fails. These businesses have made a misjudgement of political risk in the view they could profiteer, that it is possible to rip off the people forever without blowback. That is a business miscalculation, and such businesses deserve to fail.
The Labour Party’s renationalisation proposals have been carefully calculated within the existing framework of “legitimate” property rights. Therefore John McDonnell has framed rail nationalisation in terms of the expiration of franchises, and talked of PFI projects in terms of buyouts. I reject this approach in favour of the more radical approach of confiscation.
Yes, I realise that some percentage of the investments removed will belong to pension funds and insurance companies and even foreign states, and to small investors. Still more will belong to hedge funds and plutocrats, and the stake of ordinary people in wealth through pension funds had been – deliberately – tumbling for two decades. The less wealthy individuals with a stake in pension funds will lose a little, but gain from the wider public good, and for them there might be a compensation mechanism.
I also realise the markets will not like confiscation, and there will be an increase in bond yields; but this will pass. There is no measure to redress social injustice the markets will like. The City of London is our enemy and will naturally attempt to resist or punish any attack on its continued ability to be the conduit for the hoovering dry of the national wealth.
The fact is, that the extreme injustice and inequalities of society have now become so very glaring that there is no way to make any impression on wealth disparity without changes that may be rightly considered revolutionary. Either we are content to live in a society where the wealthiest one per cent will within two decades own ninety per cent of all wealth in the UK and the rest of us be helots, or we make changes to the fabric of the economy and government which are truly radical.
The economic system has tilted beyond correction by tinkering.
What is immorally owned ought not to be compensated on expropriation by the community.
As with the owners of slaves, the owners of “property” would be likely to attempt to defend their riches through the courts. This is where the doctrine of the sovereignty of parliament might for once be put to good rather than evil use, in passing law making such state confiscation unequivocally legal. Both the UK and Scotland appear set for at least a period outside the EU; I cannot think of a better use for any window of legal autonomy.
I am fully aware that I am proposing very radical measures very unlikely to be adopted by the current political Establishment. But the most telling fact of recent western society, itself a natural and predictable result of that galloping wealth inequality, is that the political Establishment has its coat on a very shoogly peg.
Seriously arab leaders are the worst yet.
Oman will allow Israeli planes to use airspace, Netanyahu says
https://on.rt.com/9k7l
If the Arab leaders of Yemen had thought about anything other than lining their own pockets, Israeli jets would not now be trying to fly over Oman.
Politicians finally and unexpectedly vote , Labour change their vote at the last minute for an end to this mathematical madness https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/computers/item/30873-new-aussie-law-attacks-encryption-threatens-privacy-and-liberty
The cat crept into the crypt, crapped and crept out again. The quickest way not to have to Brexit the civilised world is never to enter it in the beginning.
Er, the Australian Senate just voted 4 to 1 to de-secure their own Internet commerce system? Isn’t that somewhat risky?
I suppose they’re assuming that the infinitely valuable keys they’ve just voted to create will be kept perfectly secure forever, by all keyholders, mostly in departments under minimal public oversight and which routinely deal with international professional criminals. Cool.
I suppose if all keyholders are called Bruce, the confusion could provide some protection.
After calling an unnecessary general election to lose her majority and be dependent on DUP votes, she promotes a deal that alienates DUP votes. Its deliberate sabotage and the aim is to lose by as many votes possible in the interests of Remain.
Spending £100,000 taxpayer funds on Facebook ads to promote this Brest Litovsk/Versailles Treaty shows how easily Zuckerberg rakes in the cash
Yes just post about your personal hobby horse anywhere, Dave. Just click any button in sight. What you have to say is so crucial that should be posted absolutely everywhere.
It’s all theft from the past Craig.
Taking it back is morally correct.
Regards
The “theft” of land in Scotland and South Africa are two different things.
What’s not understood is that much of the farmland being seized in South Africa was not taken from the ancestors of the people it will be redistributed to.
Basically, the nomadic San (Kalahari Bushmen) were roaming South Africa for more than 50,000 years when the pastoralist Khoe arrived on the scene around 2,000 years ago. The Nguni/Bantu arrived around the same time as the European settlers (mid 17th century). Both the latter groups engaged in wars of conquest and seized land from the San and Khoe (whom the South African government recognise as “first peoples”)
But the farms seized from Whites will not be given to the Khoe/San. They’ll be given to the much more politically powerful Nguni/Bantu. We saw how well this worked in Zimbabwe.
It should also be noted that much of the land that the Europeans “took” was not being used by the Khoe/San for farming because they lacked the irrigation technology required to make it viable.
Scotland – and, indeed, all UK land – is different. It was basically “stolen” at swordpoint by various tyrants and then distributed to various supporting families in return for military support. Some has since been sold off, but – at least according to Geroge Monbiot of the Grauniad – some 70% is still in the hands of less than 1% of the population.
Instead of seizing the land however, a more straightforward and productive way of “redistributing” its intrinsic wealth would be for the UK to switch from taxing “value add” to “value-take” activities; ie, less tax on wages and profits, and more on titles to natural resources such as land ownership (similar to how the government levies fees for telecoms companies to use chunks of the electromagnetic spectrum). This would oblige the Grosvenors etc to pay for the privilege of “owning” the land, or sell their title to large quantities of it in order to pay their taxes.
In addition to incentivising the most productive use of land, LVT has the advantage that it’s practically impossible to evade; the government establishes a rate based on the plot’s size and location, and if the occupier doesn’t pay the tax, the title to that plot is sold by the government to someone else.
All land in UK takes title from The Crown. English Society used to work on the Lockean Principle of adding value to land – which is basically inert in itself – and by sweat of the brow improving it by adding value. The largest land mass on earth failed to utilise its land productively, polluted much of it, and was reduced to importing grain from the USA which it let rot in railway sidings because after 70 years of Collective Farming it could not feed its cattle or its people. Today Russia is a major grain exporter and produces beef in Voronezh with know-how of Western farmers who invest in land – Dutch and English farmers, Germans and Chinese and South Africans are farming.
Expropriation is an Emotional Spasm which leads to hunger and long-term soil erosion.
The solution is for the land to be nationalised, and then rented to whoever wants to farm it.
That way the political point is made that colonialism and imperialism is over, but that the nation’s productive capacity will not be compromised by cronyism.
That is OK if it can be kept for farming but in countries like England the housing shortage is so severe that all land which can be built on is under pressure for development.
I was making the farming point wrt to Zim and SA.
There is plenty of housing currently available in the England, but it isn’t distributed equitably – geographically or demographically.
“In 2016, 116,200 households in England applied to their councils for housing assistance because they said they were homeless. ”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39745253
Yet:
“More than 200,000 homes in England … were empty for at least six months during 2016 …”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/20/over-200000-homes-in-england-still-lying-empty-despite-housing-shortages
So…116K applicants to English local authorities; 200K homes available in England.
It’s not a land, or even housing, availability problem; it’s a distributional problem – almost entirely due to the market-driven concentration of employment opportunity in London.
(Same as with our neoliberal economy; there’s plenty of money in the UK, its just all concentrated in one place: the top.)
How can it be “nationalised” if it belongs to The Crown anyway just as all minerals below the earth belong to The Crown as do air rights.
Mr Shigemitsu, I have the distinct sense you know very little about the judicial and legal structure of this nation and simply regurgitate inanities. Name me one country on earth that has Nationalised ALL Land and run a successful economy and society……go on…..name two
Brilliant here. From Mark Curtis.. On a recent history of Almost Everything.. Everything of Real importance is mentioned and two fingers to the MsM. Respect Mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM9EYrE3wqA
Yes, excellent interview, highly reccomended. Clear, accurate and well told.
Mark Curtis writes very well on ME matters. Here he talks about the close cooperation between May’s government and the apartheid state and the lack of curiosity by the MSM to discuss this.
http://markcurtis.info/2018/12/07/colluding-in-war-crimes-britains-unreported-military-alliance-with-israel/
Yes thanks Brian. The sound and vision is much better on the HD YT than on the RT website. A must watch.
‘On this episode of Going Underground, historian Mark Curtis reveals that Britain bears responsibility for around 10 million deaths since WW2. He goes over Britain’s support for repressive regimes throughout the period, bloody conflicts Britain has been involved in and massacres Britain has been complicit in which have been wiped from the history books.’
Copies to all extant Prime Ministers, ie Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron and May The rest are dead.
Clement Attlee 1945-1951
Winston Churchill 1951-1955
Anthony Eden 1955-1957
Harold Macmillan 1957-1963
Alec Douglas-Home 1963-1964
Harold Wilson 1964-1970
Edward Heath 1970-1974
Harold Wilson 1974-1976
James Callaghan 1976-1979
Margaret Thatcher 1979-1990
John Major 1990-1997
Tony Blair 1997-2007
Gordon Brown 2007-2010
David Cameron 2010-2016
Theresa May 2016……..
Mark Curtis relates a terrible litany of our war crimes on brown skinned people in the majority of cases over decades. We can only feel deeply ashamed.
Brilliant stuff from Mark Curtis especially on Libya and Abedi. An indictment there on Cameron and his attack on Libya which led on to Syria and Abedi’s Manchester bombing. Did you see the spiv scuttling into his car yesterday when questioned on his decision to have the EU referendum? He is still pink!
I am glad Mark included the details of our collaboration between the UK and Israeli navies (we even supply them with components for their nuclear armed Dolfin submarines) and the UK policy of total support for Israel when there is a pretence that we are concerned about the plight of the Palestinians.
Ah yes a “terrible litany of war crimes on brown skinned people” Presumably this would include the “brown skinned” Serbs, the “brown skinned” Irish, the “brown skinned” Ukrainians and the “brown skinned” Russians.
You seem to perform an analogous role to that performed by David Icke. He is obsessed by lizard people and you are obsessed by certain preferred victims. If you want to live way beyond your means and resolutely refuse to do any work then you are going to have to exploit and kill all manner of people irrespective of their skin color. Something you have been doing for a long time now
You are however reaching the end of the road because the Russians have no intention of subsidizing your feckless useless sense of self entitlement.
Are you Israeli Loony? If you had a relative who the Israelis had tried to kill when they were travelling to Gaza with aid, as I have, you might be able to get it.
WELL said, Sharp Ears. Various commenters here complain about your anger. They need to be reminded that others are more personally connected than themselves.
Since their Dolphin subs are built in Germany by HDW and sold to Greece as well it is good that the UK has export sales to Germany.
Yes. Terrific! Wunderbar!
A reminder that Israel refuses to acknowledge that it possesses nuclear weapons. Also they have never signed the non -proliferation treaty.
It is almost as if Dimona does not exist, nor Mordecai Vanunu who blew the whistle on them.
They are dangerous psychos.
Bizarre. Israel has nuclear weapons and everyone knows it does or it would have no purpose to have them at all.
What I should like to know is why UK/NL/DE thought it important for Pakistan to have nuclear weapons and let A Q Khan have access to URENCO so he could steal blueprints for gas-centrifuges and then contact them for parts as he engaged in nuclear proliferation ?
Jonathan Cook
From Marc Lamont Hill to the Quakers, no Criticism of Israel is Allowed
December 10, 2018
For 30 years, the United Nations has held an annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on 29 November. The event rarely merited even a passing nod in the mainstream media. Until last week.
Marc Lamont Hill, a prominent US academic and political commentator for CNN, found himself deluged by a tsunami of outrage over a speech he had made at the UN headquarters in New York. He called for an end to Oslo’s discredited model of interminable and futile negotiations over Palestinian statehood – a strategy that is already officially two decades past its sell-by date.
In its place, he proposed developing a new model of regional peace based on a single state offering equal rights to Israelis and Palestinians. Under a barrage of criticism that his speech had been anti-semitic, CNN summarily fired him.
/..
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50732.htm
Ownership of CNN??
Ben Nimmo. Typical
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/researcher-at-government-funded-think-tank-behind-fake-news-story-that-kremlin-aided-corbyns-rise
Does every country have an Ambassador to the EU and NATO? Israel does. I say ‘country’ but as Israel has no borders and knows no law, I will change ‘country’ to ‘entity’.
Mission of Israel to the EU and NATO
http://embassies.gov.il/eu/AboutTheEmbassy/Pages/The-Ambassador.aspx
There is also an European Friends of Israel set up within the EU parliament.
http://www.matanel.org/project/efi-european-friends-of-israel/
‘Vision
EFI draws its members together to increase understanding, to deepen the relationship between Europe and Israel, to expand and reinforce European support of Israel, and promote democracy, peace and dialogue in the region.
Activity
EFI was established in 2006 under the leadership of Michel Gourary and is now the biggest organization of its kind in Europe, gathering 1500 Parliamentarians and Policy Makers who are Friends of Israel, from the European Parliament, the 27 National Parliaments of the European Union and from 20 National Parliaments of the Council of Europe.
Tell that to the Palestinians.
Well the howls of laughter and derision could quite clearly be heard in the HoC yesterday when Theresa May said “It was clear that there was broad support for the deal”.
However as May heads to Europe in hope of reforming key aspects of the deal, her EU counterparts have been adamant that the deal offered is the only deal on the table, both EU chiefs Donald Tusk, and Jean-Claude Junker poured cold water on any new agreement.
Even the Irish PM Leo Varadkar ruled out reopening talks around the backstop.
In my opinion it’s increasingly looking like either a no deal or no Brexit at all.
Meanwhile Labour’s dithering over Brexit isn’t helping at all. The LibDems and Plaid Cymru said that they’d back Labour if they call for a vote of no confidence, however as usual spineless Labour announced they would not call for it this week. This week is probably the most disastrous in Theresa May’s horrendously inept tenure yet Corbyn can’t bring himself to do anything meaningful about it.
Everyone knows Brexit will be economically very damaging, and that remaining in the EU is the safest route to take. Yet Corbyn as the official opposition dithers and muses, and twiddles his thumbs on a daily basis whilst parliament reaches new lows.
Brexit can be stopped dead in its tracks, Scottish MSP’s and others proved it can by challenging in the EU courts whether or not Article 50 could be revoked or not, it can, and should be.
The onus now lies with Corbyn to stop this shambolic government from causing serious harm to the citizens of these islands. May will plod on regardless, Corbyn needs to call the no confidence vote of which other parties are screaming at him to do before we find ourselves out with a no deal. It beggars belief that he can’t or refuses see the cliff edge up ahead. Is Corbyn’s loathing of the EU (would explain his tacitness on the pending disaster about to befall the UK) stronger than his sense of doing the right thing?
I take it maths is not your strong point.
The LibDems and Plaid Cymru can say anything they want, unless the DUP AND some tories also vote for it, a no confidence motion will fail. All it would achieve is uniting the tories and allowing may to say the majority of parliament is behind her.
Sturgeon is not that naive, she knows that, with the DUP openly saying they will support may, it can’t pass. The question you should ask, is why she wants to prop up the tories, because that si precisely what she is proposing.
I’m sure they’re would be enough support in the House for a second vote on Brexit. That’s the goal of many in the House, even the Tory rebels could vote for that.
According to LBC and I’m not 100% sure myself, the PM broke parliamentary rules by calling off the vote tomorrow, apparently a vote is required to do so.
It would also appear that Theresa May is making the rules up as she goes along by indicating that she’ll hold the vote again on or around the 21st of January, in theory with no offical guidelines should could hold it the day before we’re meant to leave the EU.
Of course the real sticking point is that Corbyn doesn’t really want Britain to remain in the EU.
“i’m sure they’re would be enough support in the House for a second vote on Brexit.”
Which is why IDS and Hunt the C*nt are hyping up the threat of civil disobedience, a la Francais, while completely missing the fact that the French are protesting against Macron’s Tory inspired austerity programme.
If the British can put up with austerity for the masses, while the 1% get exponentially richer, for 10 years with barely a whimper I can’t see them taking to the streets because they are being asked to exercise their democratic right to vote in a referendum.
Another slight problem with the IDS and Hunt nonsense is that they are suggesting that there should not be a referendum because if the will of the people has changed to support remain than a bunch of bald white racist men (like IDS for example) will kick up a fuss. Hardly inspiring confidence in democracy or the ‘will of the people meme’ they keep peddling.
haha the Cons are a mess and making a mess of the UK, and it’s Corbyn’s fault? They only get one chance at no confidence, so what a silly man for waiting until it is most likely to succeed!?
If it fails they have propped up the Tories, and even if it succeeds it’d be dangerous for the UK because a minority government, even with Corbyn as PM, is likely to fail, especially inheriting such a mess, reinforcing the disinformation seated in the population’s minds. This would see the end of Corbyn as leader and so we would end up with either more Tory criminal nonsense, or the same from a Blairite Labour. Deep state wins again.
Yes and people wonder why even after all the disasters linked to May and her policies, that Corbyn and Labour are still behind in the polls.
Sitting on your hands and doing nothing whilst the Tories ruin the economy and people’s lives into the bargain won’t go down well at the polls.
Corbyn can shout about May’s disasterous Brexit deal all he wants, but in essence he’s pro-Brexit. Unsurprisingly by hedging his bets on Brexit, instead of firmly picking a side and making a stand, Labour are still marginally behind in the polls.
Are Labour just as culpable as the Tories on Brexit knowing fine well the damage it will do, their unwillingness to do do something, anything, except sit on their hands about it.
Yes, well informed comment. By standing boldly and firmly for Remain and a 2nd referendum the Lib Dems have soared to 7% in the polls. Why won’t this weak, silly Corbyn fellow do likewise?
At least the LibDems have taken a stance, not like Labour hedging their bets, which in my opinion, won’t be forgetten by the electorate at the next GE.
RoS why do you say the Tories are ruining the economy?
Scottish unemployment rate hits record low at 3.7%
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-46522798
There are lies, damned lies, and also statistics
Two years Michael, two whole years you’ve been in denial over Brexit, even now after the government published its own white paper on the defcon levels of disaster that Brexit will bring to the UK.
You persist on pushing Brexit as a positive. There’s no Brexit scenario or deal where we are better-off than remaining in the EU.
The EU can’t give us a better deal than we already have, leaving the largest trade bloc in the world can’t possibly be good for us economically.
I should remind you that we haven’t exited the EU yet, but if we already have the best deal (rebate included) that we’re going to get from the EU by remaining, it the goes without saying that every other deal is not so good, and a no deal is a disaster.
The Fraser of Allander Institute claims a no deal will see 80,000 jobs go in Scotland alone, a reduced deal or minimum Brexit sees 30,000 jobs go in Scotland. I’d imagine those figures will be much higher in the rUK.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-37564729
Aren’t you glad Nick Clegg got The Fixed Term Parliament Act on the Statute Book to save the LibDems and it now prevents the English Constitution from bringing down the Government and forcing a General election to resolve contradictions when Parliament fails to carry out policy willed by the Electorate ?
Brilliant move by Clegg to create Constitutional Crisis akin to 1641
So what is the SNP waiting for? they can call for a no confidence vote, RoS. Mind some here are already exchanging the usual muddy election niceties, come to think of it, some do this all the time as if paid for it.
As Arlene Foster called the PM and said the backstop must go, Stormont civil servants have spent more than £1,000 buying 40 cakes for staff to celebrate the controversial roll-out of the new Universal Credit benefits system.
https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2018/12/10/news/stormont-buys-40-cakes-to-celebrate-universal-credit-1504647/
But May wasn’t to be outdone as her government spent £100,000 pounds on promoting her EU deal on Facebook, Twitter and Google, only for the vote on it to be kicked into the long grass.
We now live in a UK where Edvard Munch ‘s The Scream painiting feels appropriate.
I voted to leave the EU and I still want to leave the EU. I think the May deal is acceptable and I wish the extreme Brexiteers would stop trying to wreck it.
Can’t the extreme Brexiteers see that the result of their obstruction will be that we stay in the EU?
A deal that is full of unicorns what might be’s could be’s and unresolved issues.
Its not a deal it’s a botched up half-arsed agreement on next to nothing, that promises somehow to sort it out later, and you’re fine with that.
What arw yourthoughts on thw government funding social media attacks on corbyn via the set up in Fife
Finally a bit of evidence of what we already knew was going on, and almost certainly not just anti-Corbyn misinformation or the only cell, and instead of raids they sit on it while the culprits cover their tracks. Now blaming Russian hacking for it! Nearly choked on my tea with laughter this morning when I heard that. Worse, they will probably get away with it and this problem will grow stronger. I can just see all those that gobble up MSM barking ‘bloody Russians at it again’ and ‘I blame Corbyn’, hardly blissful in their ignorance while their countries are being asset stripped from beneath them.
Russia bots responsible for defending Corbyn. Russian hacking responsible for attacking Corbyn. Wake up people we need you, you need you.
And hired journalists and academics across Europe to influence political appointments paid by the British government ( in Catalan referendum and Pedro Baños sabotage ) . Over 2 million pounds to subvert democracies at home and in sovereign countries .
The Spanish cluster of integrity initiative people gave evidence to Damien Collins in the “fake news investigation committee” , as did Bill Browder .
Carole Cadwalladr is now saying the publishing of this true watergate is a Kremlin manoeuvre and she’s now posting pro Ukraine and anti Russia propaganda on twitter as if there’s no tomorrow .
This integrative initiative goes far deeper than we may even think . It’s sickening . I advise reading the leaked files for a grasp of the enormity of it all .
Integrity Initiative is a recent (2015) sideline of The Institute for Statecraft (incorporated 2006). The Foreign Office donations (£ 2.2 M in two years) went to the Institute but how much has been given in cash or equivalent services since 2006. Having been rumbled the Initiative can be swiftly knocked on the head, the scandal swept under the carpet. The wonder is that anyone in MSM ran with the story. The FCO is playing a smart game by using a notionally private sector / charity outfit. Having been caught out fabricating dirt on the Labour Party, the FCO will redirect funding to some other third sector, pop up mob. New name, new cover.
Meanwhile over at the Home Office the game is being played in-house (with the risks less easily dodged in the event of a SNAFU).
Robin Ramsay updates The View from the Bridge, page 9, IRD reborn.
https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/free/lobster76/lob76-view-from-the-bridge.pdf
Home Office department, Research, Information and Communications Unit (formed 2007) seeks to “”effect attitudinal and behavioural change” through methods including the dissemination of messages on social media …. and feeding stories to newspapers”.
Robin muses that RICU was championed by Gordon Brown. I wonder what they were up to in 2014?
@Viv, I wonder what they were up to in 2014? the months leading up to September 2014?
Institute for Statecraft seems to be spookily based in derelict, crumbling, Gateside Mill which is near Auchtermuchty, rural Fife
Gateside, Cupar, KY14 7SU, Scotland
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/derelict-crumbling-scots-mill-shadowy-13674992
I wonder what they were typing in 2014, from rural Fife, Scotland?
The only reason I remember the name Auchtermuchty is due to the old ex editor in chief of the old Sunday Express ( then a broadsheet and a very good crossword too ) was that whenever he was musing over the proceeedings of the week he would end his column with:
” What would the boys in Auchtermuchty say about that! ”
Used to like him and Andrew Alexander of the Mail I think that was his paper.
Right wingers both but very entertaining writers.
They both make Quentin Letts look like schoolboy columinst.
I thought I heard him slander the Speaker of Parliament today.
Anyone else note it?
So big deal Theresa.
‘BREAKING: Downing Street has confirmed the House of Commons will be asked to vote on the PM’s Brexit deal by 21 January.
MPs were originally set to decide on Theresa May’s agreement today, before the PM’s dramatic decision to pull a vote and make a whistle-stop tour of EU capitals in order to seek further “reassurances” on the so-called backstop.’
The troughers go off on 20th December and return on 7th January So the stagnation and uncertainty continue.
____
Slight foul up in Berlin this morning. She was locked in her car. Should have stayed there.
‘BREAKING: Downing Street has confirmed the House of Commons will be asked to vote on the PM’s Brexit deal by 21 January………..but cannot specify which year it might be…….
Standard Downing Street Disclaimer (TM)
“In no respect shall Downing Street incur any liability for any damages, including, but limited to, direct, indirect, special, or consequential damages arising out of, resulting from, or any way connected to belief in this item, whether or not based upon warranty, contract, tort, or otherwise; whether or not injury was sustained by persons or property or otherwise; and whether or not loss was sustained from, or arose out of, the results of, the item, or any services that may have been implied or inferred from this Statement”
Immunity from prosecution or charges for Lord Tebbit who ran over the foot of a tourist outside the Houses of Parliament.
‘The tourist gestured at his foot and at the car tyres as the officer asks him if he is ok.
He then said “this guy” and pointed at Tebbit and the road while gesticulating angrily.
Tebbit did not get out of the car during the incident and instead watched on from the driver’s seat while the police officer dealt with the tourist.
Just before he walked away from the car, the officer tapped the inside of the driver’s window and nodded at Tebbit, who then put the car into gear and drove forward.’
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/video-former-tory-minister-stopped-by-police-after-running-over-foot-of-tourist/11/12/
So that’s OK then. Q Why does the 87 year old peer need a Chrysler Grand Voyager? A seven seater with a 2.8 litre engine and a snip at £28k afaik.
All respect to elderly people who often have an interesting perspective on life. But by 87 you most probably shouldn’t be allowed to drive. It’s a pity no complaint was made.
Tebbit is senile old twat because a couple of months ago he was arguing in the Lords that Hitler was a socialist, sheer nonsense that was later repeated in the European Parliament by a Tory MEP, which was rightly greeted by howls of ‘idiot’ and loud laughter. Unfortunately Tebbit’s comment passed without a murmur, such is the state of public discourse in this country.
You really could research historical fact much more assiduously and just why the Nazi flag was RED and BLACK and what kind of party Anton Drexler had formed Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. You should read up on Ernst Roehm. Perhaps if you can jump over the prejudice fence you have erected to such a height, you could see just how Hitler mopped up SPD and Royalist Votes to isolate the KPD and USPD and why he copied Henry Ford and created a “People’s Car’ to rival Tin Lizzie
Why does the 87 year old peer need a Chrysler Grand Voyager?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/6622798/Lord-Tebbits-wife-Margaret-Norman-and-I-dont-have-time-to-cry.html
Margaret Elizabeth Tebbit, Lady Tebbit, née Daines,[1] is a former nurse who was severely and permanently paralysed by the IRA’s 12 October 1984 bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton, where she was staying with her husband, Norman Tebbit, then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, during the Conservative Party Conference.[2]
She married Norman Tebbit in 1956.[1] They have two sons and a daughter.[1] Prior to her injury, she worked as a nurse at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London.[3]
After the bomb explosion, she spent two years in Stoke Mandeville Hospital and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, undergoing treatment in their spinal injuries units.[3] During this period, she recovered some use of her hands and arms.[3]
She appeared as a castaway on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs on 31 December 1995.[4] She compared her earlier experiences of severe post-natal depression with her later physical disability.[3][4]
Letter from my MP, a Tory junior minister. I wrote advocating the nationalization of water supplies.
Complacency and the status quo rule.
‘Thank you for contacting me about the public ownership of water. I appreciate you taking the time to share your views with me.
I believe the ongoing needs of water customers will only be met by properly regulated private markets, rather than a nationalisation of the water industry. Since privatisation, £140 billion has been invested in water supply, and due to this, consumers are five times less likely to suffer from interruptions to their supply.
The Government has also encouraged water companies to do more to protect the environment and provide customers with a reliable and resilient service. Due to the Government’s influence, water companies now plan to invest £50 billion on improving services, whilst reducing customer bills on average by 4% in real terms by 2025.
Thank you again for contacting me. If there is ever anything I can do for you, please do let me know.’
Privatisation of profits for unknown shareholders is not the only way to get investment should be your reply.
If Welsh Water managed to do so on a ‘mutual’ basis – every utility should!
It hasn’t stopped their investments, from across the worlds pension funds even. The only difference is that there are no mega salaries and bonuses, no uncontrolled debt and no underinvestment.
If i could i’d buy my water and services from them!
Thank you. I will do that. My own bill is nearly treble what is was ten years ago for the same consumption as recorded on one of Thames Water’s meters.
The Thames Water customers are paying a fortune to finance the construction of the Thames sewer.
Their profits for 2017 were +£71m. The directors’ salaries for all of the companies amounted to £58m over 5 years –
Water bosses’ £58m pay over last five years a ‘national scandal’
GMB chief launches campaign to return England’s nine water firms to national ownership
Rupert Neate
5 Jun 2018
The bosses of England’s privatised water companies have been criticised for banking £58m in pay and benefits over the last five years while customers have been faced with above-inflation rises in their water bills.
The GMB union said the chief executives of England’s nine water and sewage companies were “fat cats” earning “staggering sums” from the management of a natural resource.
Tim Roache, GMB’s general secretary, said the pay awarded to water bosses was a national scandal and launched a campaign to return the industry to public ownership.
[ Water company fat cats give Labour a soft target for nationalisation talk – Nils Pratley] read more
Household water bills have risen by 40% above inflation since the industry was privatised in 1989, according to a National Audit Office report. The average bill this year will be £405, a 2% increase on last year, according to Water UK, the trade body that represents water and sewerage companies.
“It’s a national scandal that over the last five years England’s hard-pressed water customers have been forced to splash out £58m through their bills to go into the pockets of just nine individuals,” Roache said. “Privatisation of the water industry has been a costly mistake and these eye-watering sums are further proof the water industry must be returned to public hands.
“The GMB is urging people and politicians to Take Back the Tap and make our water services work for the many and not the few.”
/..
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jun/05/water-companies-pay-national-scandal-gmb-union-says
If Denis Healey had not taken the easy way out in 1976 by Cutting the Capital Account of Public Sector Spending rather than the Current Expenditure side the huge backlog of repairs and investment needed in Water Supplies (EU regulations), Telecoms (technology), and Railways and Infrastructure and Energy Networks would not have led the Tories to panic and N Sea Oil revenues could have been invested instead.
I favour Municipal Ownership of Water as it was prior to 1972 and Local Government Reorganisation when Edward Heath NATIONALISED it without compensation even though ratepayers had paid for reservoirs and pipelines
Anyone else wearing a yellow vest ?
Yes, but only because I haven’t got ’round to doing the washing.
how come I’m not surprised.. those damn Frenchies, ey? Can’t trust anything they do, ever.., even if they’re right..
Why can’t the West ever say anything true or nice about Putin?
Now it is claiming that he was just a GDR recruiter rather then he saved us from WWIII as a KGB Major over the shooting of Olof Palme.
Astonishing spin from the state broadcaster on the Integrity Initiative story. Even by its own egregious standards, this is twisting the narrative completely out of shape to serve the crumbling UK state’s ongoing Russophobic psyops.
The first paragraph states: “The Foreign Office has accused Russian state media of trying to discredit a government-funded body that works to counter Kremlin disinformation.”
We are through the looking glass.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46509956
Yes, and we will not hear one voice in MSM highlighting the absurdity. Orwellian times, Mike.
Pretty disgusting but BBC is itself part of it,
MI5 vetted thousands of BBC staff to keep ‘evil’ and ‘subversive’ lefties out
https://on.rt.com/93td
God knows who really run MSM in the background.
Also remember how uninteresting they were in the Philip Cross affair. Very suspicious.
As with Wikileaks, Assange and Snowden they defame and vilify the leaker rather than the perpretators . It is beyond sick and it is madness that some people actually fall for it.
Again and again
https://imgflip.com/i/1awc2u
Where have all the Tories gone in Mother Theresa’s absence touring European capitals? Half of the Tory benches are completely empty in a desultory debate on ‘the meaningful vote’ ie ‘the meaningless vote’..
It has been revealed that May has just spent £100,000 of public money on Mr Zuckerberg’s Facebook enterprise on advertising. Advertising what I am not sure. Anyone on Facebook noticed them? What a scandalous waste of public money. It is as if we are back In Mussolini’s or Hitler’s time.
The Tories have complete contempt for Parliament and for the country’s citizens.
Just taking a break after the almost surreal Kate Hoeys performance.
Anyways my CT take in yesterdays events revolve around the sharp drop in Sterling.
Trezza, her banker mates, made an absolute killing – any short positions would have in a day trade! That is the only explanation if having the cabinet briefing the press till lunch time with the opposite story! The timing allows playing the US market as well.
Today, she has gone to deliver the final ultimatum to mutti in person from the City. Make an exception for them or else it is war!
Ah well back to the pointless chattering.
Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Moskovitz are co-founders of Facebook and Jewish nationals. Another co-founder is Chris Huges, whos gay-partner is Sean Eldridge. Should I mention his nationality? Or another co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s?
There are a lot of Friends of *srael in Br8t8sh Parlament and vice versa. Friends give gifts sometimes.
To be fair, Tatyana, the British Govt, and its elected representatives, get gifts from all over. Not that I disagree with the power of a certain lobby.
It’s said that Mark Zuckerberg is red/green colour blind, (New Yorker magazine) but he can see the colour blue pretty well, and that’s why the Facebook website is predominately blue in colour.
Facebook also owns Instagram and WhatsApp
Another company founded by jewish nationals (Larry Page and Sergey Brin) is Google.
Google owns YouTube, Gmail, Blogger, Hangouts and whole Android.
Isn’t it marvelouse? Every bit of info-space…
Mind you, all these talanted jewish nationals are US citizens.
No place for Huawei anywhere
I had never suspected Wiki contains ‘List of British Jews’
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_Jews
How do you like the list of British jewish politicians?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_Jewish_politicians
And Scottish jews?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Scottish_Jews#Political_figures
Amazing!
There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a religious belief – especially if it is passed down through your ancestors, is there?
Stop the baiting, no one on this site buys it, from you or from Giyane. You might just as well have a go at the scientologists, the neo-buddhists, as well as the believers in the Force or Klingons!
If you want to make a point about the rich, major investment bankers and princes of the planet than please be clear – you could include the Lombardians and their worldwide ‘christian’ conspiracy.
Personal spiritual beliefs have no bearing on the powerplayers of the world who actually have only one secret god – Mamon.
.
Agreed. DG. Star quality. Reposted. Are-emphasised.
“
Dungroanin (to “Tat”)
December 11, 2018 at 21:11
There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a religious belief – especially if it is passed down through your ancestors, is there?
Stop the baiting, no one on this site buys it, from you or from Giyane. You might just as well have a go at the scientologists, the neo-buddhists, as well as the believers in the Force or Klingons!
“
.
Typo, apologies.
s/b. . . . “Agreed. DG. Star quality. Reposted. And Re-emphasised.”
.
Who is talking about religious believes?
I tell you about nationality and its prerogatives.
Don’t you find it strange, that in multi-national country like USA there are not enough talanted chinese or belgians?
Beliefs!
Nationality?
Semantic distortions is what read in your formulations. Takes a bit of work that.
So so tatty, very very tatty, Taty.
I have suggested before your naivete comes across like David Walliams ‘Lady’.
@ Dungroanin December 11, 2018 at 21:11
‘…the powerplayers of the world who actually have only one secret god – Mamon.’ (aka Baal aka Moloch aka Lucifer aka….).
Google was founded by CIA using its Vencap Fund In-Q-Tel and the Prof that sponsored them at Stanford was a CIA agent developing Big Data. Google is headed by ABC which has Eric Schmidt who is so far into the Deep State that he is an institution. Amazon provides FBI Cloud Services and lots of computing power to US Spooks. Silicon Valley is owned and funded by DARPA
“Jewish nationals.”
Pejorative term, they are both US nationals who are Jewish. If asked what their nationality was they would never answer ‘Jewish’.
Deb O’Nair
Isn’t it US citizenship and Jewish nationality? Why pejorative?
To make it clear, how it is in Russia:
we’ve got a lot of nations, eg. Tatars, Adygs, Russians, Chechens, Ukrainians, Tadjics, Jews, Armenians etc.
We are all russian citizens.
Nothing offensive in question about nationality. For example, if I know that a person is Adyg national, so I will not offer him pork for dinner and I will congratulate him on Kurban Bairam. It is good to distinguish him from Georgian or Armenian, who are christians.
What I was talking about is – nationals inside a country make communities, fraternities, make friends, marriages, help each other in bisiness and so on.
For Dungroanin and Molloy:
to refer to religion there is the term ‘Judaic’.
To become an Israel citizen, one must be either Judaic, or have Jewish nationality mother, this rule relates to those who do not live in Israel.
Distorting names considered very rude in my country, especially if they are real names of live persons.
Ah, forget the last, I think you don’t care anyway.
Charlie and Resident-Dissident used to come in pairs, too.
Keep digging your tatty hole Tatyana you are already too deep to climb out.
In your list of ethnic groupings of Russia – identified by their geographical homelands – you squeeze in jews!
Religion does not define ethnicity.
Your tatty accusation of collusion with other commentators or using muliple usernames here, is the tactic of misdirection – and indeed brngs to mnd the truisms – he who dealt it smelled it! Or takes one to know one!
For everyone else – I have only ever used a single identity here and will carry on doing so.
Ok, Dungroanin, lets make it clear.
1. I think you stuck to me because of this
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/12/azov-again/comment-page-2/#comment-806590
Perhaps, you’ll find it useful to separate your personal attitude to a commentor from your personal opinion on the topic.
2. My point about Israel and Jewish nationals some pages earlier
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/12/nationalisation-without-compensation/comment-page-6/#comment-807487
Perhaps, you’ll find it useful not to attribute your own ideas to commentors.
3. I kindly advise you to read again from the beginning
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/12/nationalisation-without-compensation/comment-page-12/#comment-808589
Perhaps, you’ll find it useful to put points in a logical chain. Maybe you’ll see that your comment on religious views is not relevant.
And an addition, regarding ‘squeezing in Jews’.
Can you imagine, there are Jews in Russia and have been living here long before May 14, 1948?
Have you ever heard about russian Jews?
Let me remind you some names: Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky, Abramovich, belive me or not, they don’t need to be squeezed in.
How the. BBC’s report on the so-called Institute of Statecraft was changed.
https://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/1712325/diff/0/1
Some tweets from Craig:
@CraigMurrayOrg
Dec 10
Foreign Office involvement with the troll farm “Integrity Initiative” and mainstream media whore purchasing “Institute for Statecraft” goes back much further than two years so far admitted. Dominic Asquith, now High Commissioner to India, “on secondment” to board 2013-15
@CraigMurrayOrg
Unless they are Chagos Islanders in which case we will steal their entire country, deport the whole population to poverty and disease, and fight through the courts to keep them from returning so the USA can use their land as a nuclear base in the Indian Ocean.
Quote Tweet
Foreign Office
@foreignoffice
Everyone, everywhere should be equal and free.
Retweet and #StandUp4HumanRights
@CraigMurrayOrg
Dec 10
Dan Kaszeta – the source of “expert” articles and interviews on why the “novichok” was so selectively lethal – was paid by the FCO via the Integrity Initiative. He now denies he ever worked for US intelligence, when his byline for those very articles gave that as a credential.
Quote Tweet
P R Films
@PRFilms1
Replying to @CraigMurrayOrg
I see #DanKaszeta is now denying that he worked for US Intelligence? And saying he can’t imagine what gave you that idea? He published it himself (link: http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2018/04/06/myth-busting-why-didn-t-the-skripals-die-on-the-spot) politics.co.uk/comment-analys…
The Foreign Office’s response to the Integrity Initiative is fascinating. From Sharp Ears’ link, the updated BBC report:
– A spokesperson said the Institute for Statecraft was hacked several weeks ago and documents were “published and amplified by Kremlin news channels“.
[…]
– …the Integrity Initiative run by the institute retweeted an article in the New Statesman in April which criticised Labour’s support for Russia’s position on Syria; an article in the Times in February in which the writer Edward Lucas described Mr Corbyn as the Kremlin’s “useful idiot”, and a Sunday Times magazine piece that criticised Mr Corbyn’s aide Seumas Milne for his opinions on Russia.
Now I understand; the New Statesman, the Times and the Sunday Times are Kremlin outlets. It’s hardly surprising I’ve been getting so confused about all this “Russian bot” stuff; I had the sides completely back to front!
Clark
Typical shoot the messenger tactic by Statecraft and BBC that “amplify” suppression of speech-propaganda.
Wouldnt surprise me though if this clientele really believe that those brittish news oulets you mentioned are in cohorts with the russians.
The paranoia of these people is mental, but it happend so many times before in history with witch hunters.Do this clientele think McCarthyism was something good?
I’m looking forward to the BBC accusing itself of being a Russian bot. Has to happen eventually.
@ Sharp Ears December 11, 2018 at 16:21
Nice find!
@ Sharp Ears December 11, 2018 at 16:21
Nice find.
I can’t confirm this yet, if true announcement probably wouldn’t be made with PM out of country.
https://www.forexlive.com/news/!/conservatives-have-sent-the-48-letters-needed-to-trigger-no-confidence-20181211
come on you beauty!
That’s the rumour. Letters being submitted to the 1922 committee from the ERG, Remainers and the middle ground. Anna Soubry’s participation in the “Vote of no confidence” press conference earlier would give the rumour some credibility.
Problem is, DUP are the King makers, so any new Conservative leader would HAVE to come from the hard Brexit wing.
There was a reason why the agreement with the DUP was signed by spiderboy king of the Mod, Gavin and not May.
There are more turds to flush.
Maybe it was because he was CHIEF WHIP and it was a Voting Agreement for “Supply”
They will get lost in the post!
“A Tory grandee recently sidled up to me to express grave reservations about the Brexit process.”
“We simply cannot allow the Irish to treat us like this,” the former minister said about the negotiating tactics of the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar.”
“The Conservative MP was exasperated that the Republic of Ireland (population: 4.8m) has been able to shape the EU negotiating stance that has put such pressure on the UK (population: 66m).”
“This simply cannot stand,” the one-time moderniser told me. “The Irish really should know their place.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-politics-46528952?__twitter_impression=true
There it is in a nutshell, it sums up the British governments how dare the EU back its member instead of giving us (who are leaving) a fantastic deal.
I take it a feeling of resentment against Ireland for not rolling over when Britain needs it to is looming large in Tory/Brexiteer minds.
As someone said “Is there no begining to their diplomatic skills?”
Varadkar has been grandstanding and will pay a heavy price. Germany and France will certainly change his Corporate Taxation arrangements going forward. He is costing the German Finance Ministry too much money and Tax Harmonisation is on its way without UK Veto since N Europe will henceforth lack the 35% Veto
Meanwhile.
Theresa May gets locked inside her car as she attempts to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Did May hear of the possible 48 letters of no confidence, or is it all just too much for her, the poor wee soul.
Watch the video of her stuck in the car.
https://mobile.twitter.com/SkyNewsPolitics/status/1072463780007809024
Here in my car
I feel safest of all
I can lock all my doors
It’s the only way to live
In cars
Here in my car
I can only receive
I can listen to you
It keeps me stable for days
In cars
Here in my car
Where the image breaks down
Will you visit me please
If I open my door
In cars
Here in my car
I know I’ve started to think
About leaving tonight
Although nothing seems right
In cars
Gary Numan ushering out the neolib era as he ushered it in!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldyx3KHOFXw
Shoddy Mercedes……embarrassment for Merkel that one of her Government cars has a dodgy passenger door
@ Clark – sorry format of this blog lends this action:
Re climate change and your response.
– “why does dismissing [celebs] help your argument?”
Because my argument is scientific. Politics is irrelevant to data, and frequently hostile to reason.
But data is relevant to politics. C’mon don’t be ingenuous here. What data to use, who pays for its collection, and so on. You once called me naive ha!
You will know that scientific arguments aren’t always correct.
– “You pretend to be unaware of this, but I suspect you are”
He played the Terminator. And a couple of hard man roles? It was him I saw in Total Recall wasn’t it? Stupid film. And then he went on to become governor of some US state, maybe California or Florida, or was that some TV wrestler or that ex-Navy SEAL / Underwater Demolition Team bloke who presents that Conspiracy Theory US TV show with Alex Jones?
Well to start you off https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/18/arnold-schwarzenegger-green-comeback WHne your spokespeople, activists, icons, and role models are hypocrites, well you don’t think that’s important. Science speaks for itself.
It’s a mad world… which I need know nothing about in order to understand the case for global warming.
You need to know something about people and the world to change things. Especially, when our knowledge is still evolving
Hope the tags work! If we ever met in RL, I’d buy you a large pint!
PS, if we’re looking at another mass extinction event, land ownership won’t matter.
Nick, the deniers claim to disagree with the science, but whenever I check out one of their claims, the science has clearly been mangled to make a false point.
First I was told that there wasn’t a clear pattern of warming, but inspecting the very data the denier presented me with, I found ten times as much warming as cooling. I was accused of being religious. Then a claim was made that CO2 couldn’t cause warming because its atmospheric concentration was too low. This is like saying that a gramme of potassium permanganate can’t tint two whole litres of water, which it does, and that an extra half gramme can’t tint it more, which it also does. This denier was also using the CO2 concentration from a couple of years ago; it has risen significantly since then.
Next I was informed that the climate scientists completely ignored the effects of solar variation. I went to the contents of an IPCC report and found a section on solar variance. To continue making this point the denier said there was no data or argument – in the table of contents! Then I was told that human emissions must be insignificant because the natural CO2 flux is much greater, ignoring the imbalance human activity creates as if extra calories can’t make anyone put on weight. Then I was told that volcanoes produce more CO2 emissions than human activity. I looked it up, and it was less than a tenth! Then I was told that the climatologists exclude water vapour from their reckoning, which is simply false. Having pointed this out, it morphed into a load of vague grumbling that water is described in terms of the effects global warming has upon its circulation rather than being classed as a “forcing”; treating it as an effect is obviously the right approach.
These aren’t scientific arguments. They’re just shit-slinging, hoping some of it will stick. The fact that deniers repeat it proves that the tactic works, but it doesn’t make it science. How many of these should I follow up? My time is limited, and these people have demonstrated that they have no interest in the science.
Finally I get your complaint; a link to a piece by Anne Nova about alleged corruption of the Hadcrut data, but the article is obviously polemical rather than scientific, since it has no discussion of the multiple data sources that Hadcrut is compiled from, and merely quotes randomly from the supposed “audit” of this data. Have you bothered to study and understand Hadcrut? Have you read the audit and cross-checked its claims against Hadcrut? Are the alleged deficiencies significant, or even true? Has the audit been submitted to the scientific community for discussion in the usual way, or has it just been released as a publicity piece, ie. more shit-slinging? If you’ve checked none of these, why are you expecting me to do it? Anyone really worried about fake data would do it themselves.
And I’m still not interested in Swartzenegger.
You say the warming data might be faked. So why the fuck are the icecaps melting??!!
In fact, if the warming data is fake, how the fuck are the icecaps melting? Melting of icecaps is warming; vast quantities of water that was cold enough to be frozen is now warm enough to be liquid, therefore the vast icecaps have warmed. If the temperature data has been faked for political purposes and there is no average warming, large areas elsewhere must be cooling to keep the average the same. But year after year we see highest temperature records broken, all over the world; it was 32 centigrade in Glasgow this summer; I was there!
Since the people making these claims have a consistent track record of false argument and distortion, and this claim makes no sense in context, is it worth me spending hours to check if they’ve done so again?
.
C — Great comment/truth.
Sláinte
* * *
Not just icecaps glaciers are speeding up as well due to them melting quicker.
Of course the planet goes through warming and cooling phases, however in this occasion the warming process is vastly speeded up due to human activity.
I believe that its too late to stop or reverse global warming impacting the flora and fauna of the world. All we can hope to do on this rollercoaster ride is to try and limit the demise by reducing Co2’s etc.
However huge economies such as the US, China, India and South East Asia will need to be forced to reduce carbon emissions. I don’t see that happening.
Extinction Rebellion are at the UK Home Office this evening. Right now.
REBEL AGAINST EXTINCTION!
RoS, we should at least try.
Extinction Rebellion are calling for “World War II levels of mobilisation” to address greenhouse gas emissions and habitat loss. In WWII, rationing was enforced, to keep the less wealthy from starving, basically. That sort of level of statuary regulation really could get emissions back down and stop habitats being trashed.
The environment is hugely complex consisting of countless millions of systems, making environmental degradation less like walking off a cliff than walking into a minefield. The more environmental systems we degrade, the more precarious our own situation becomes.
Clark.
The big economies need to drastically reduce carbon emissions, that is very unlikely. Ergo in my opinion we need to prepare for a rise in temperature, countries that are already at the edge of inhabitable will become very difficult to live in. Even countries that have a minimal rise in temperature will surely see flooding and loss of land.
The pressures on flora, fauna and humanity will be immense. As usual the human race won’t act unilaterally until we’re all on the edge of the precipice.
Yes, preparations for climate change must be made.
But emissions must be cut, or no preparation will be enough.
Of course you’re not interested in Arnie. You’d have to answer my central point. Across many posts, which you’ve avoided assiduously.
Also, as you well know, I’ve never said the data was faked. I’ve said it has been open to accusations of bias, manipulation and incompleteness. Tell me these aren’t possible. Don’t tell me to look at the polar ice to refute me.
I genuinely think that your inability to connect what we perceive as problems, how we define them, how we solve them together and in what context, appears to be quasi-religious in nature.
We can agree to disagree of course 😉
– “Tell me these aren’t possible. Don’t tell me to look at the polar ice to refute me”
Why? Our existential problem is what is happening to our biosphere, not whether some numbers have been gathered honestly. The biosphere is obviously heating up.
If you suspect Hadcrut is a fraud, you do the science to prove it. You can’t just sling out accusations and then treat them as confirmed because Clark on Craig’s blog says “check them yourself”.
Why the hell should I be interested in Swartznegger? It’s as if your mind has been captured by the mainstream media, and you can’t believe physical facts until you see some celeb change their lifestyle. That’s arse about tit, man. If you’re on the sinking Titanic, are you going to stay out of the lifeboat because Swartznegger, the hypocrite, gets in, taking sacks of his valuables with him?
For what it’s worth, I think the major political parties have turned themselves over to PR companies, because media images have become more influential than analysis of policy. It’s the same on both major sides; Trump has presented various TV shows. Don’t expect sane behaviour from celebs. But that makes zero difference to the science.
What the hell do you want me to say about Swartznegger anyway? Yes, he’s a hypocrite. Maybe you want me to say:
– “Swartznegger is a hypocrite, therefore the scientific data is probably faked”
But the signs of temperature increase are everywhere, so (1) the data probably isn’t faked, and (2) even if it is, it doesn’t make any difference, we still need to act.
I’ve never read so many straw men lined up in so many triggered paragraphs. Nor such a pig-headed unwillingness to admit that in a world of excessive consumption and exploitation – exemplified by an elite that simultaneously indulges in the worst excesses while preaching from on high – it’s just all about the data. Yes you have used Arnie as a straw man. Obviously.
Thought you were brighter than this, Clark 🙁
Sorry? I’ve “used Arnie as a straw man”?? YOU introduced Arnie, not ME!
Global warming deniers claimed their misgivings were scientific. So I examined those misgivings, and in any scientific sense they were trivially incompetent at best, but more likely just rehashed dishonesty, just fabricated doubt to influence public opinion and hence policy.
– “Nor such a pig-headed unwillingness to admit that in a world of excessive consumption and exploitation – exemplified by an elite that simultaneously indulges in the worst excesses while preaching from on high – it’s just all about the data”
The scientific issue is just about the data, and the deniers claimed their objections were scientific. And I have duly answered every such objection scientifically.
I entirely agree about excessive consumption, exploitation and hypocrisy, but those are just my political opinions; inevitably personal. I feel that the mass media, by its nature, can’t do much to help, which is why for decades I haven’t bothered to partake. But I can expose the fake “science” parroted by the deniers.
Yes Clark. I introduced Arnie as an example. You attacked (or feigned ignorance of) that example, to discredit the argument. Hence straw man.
Can we even save the planet? Curious?
I really don’t take any notice of that stuff; I had no idea what Schwarzenegger was up to.
I did discover a bit about the governor of Florida’s connection to the Que Pasa Hispanic social networking and gambling site, but only because I got spammed when ex-ambassador Brian Barder’s e-mail account got compromised:
http://www.barder.com/quepasa-an-apology/
Oh the planet will be all right:
https://qntm.org/destroy
We only need to preserve the recent climate regime. Should be a doddle 🙂
Nick, I’m aware that I’m not very worldly-wise. I don’t watch telly or read newspapers. I’m not interested in celebs, and I’m only functionally interested in political parties. I’d much rather spend an evening reading popular science, reading science blogs, skipping between pages and citations on Wikipedia, or working out how to repair some device than doing most of the things more ‘normal’ people do.
It’s up to people like you to do something about Schwartzenegger, because I wouldn’t have a clue where to start. I didn’t know he was posing as an eco-activist. The pretence is laughable in my opinion, and I’m quite prepared to accept he’s a liability.
But global warming deniers claimed their objections were scientific, and I’m the sort to address that. I’ve looked at their objections and they aren’t scientific, no matter what Schwartzenegger and his ilk may or may not do.
Sorry. Beginning to get triggered myself. Ha. Peace.
Peace to you too Nick. Peace to all humanity, if we can.
If Schwarzenegger winds you up, I think that’s entirely reasonable; I’d probably feel the same myself. Follow my example if you wish and turn off the fucking telly 🙂 Most of it’s just mind-rot anyway.
We’re not looking at “another mass extinction event” we’re already at an advanced stage in its progress.
The Permian Extinction was so grave, that it was the first time that insect died out en masse
We really do not want to trigger something like that.
Minefield. Stop immediately. Back out carefully.
Don’t panic! Don’t panic!
Blunderbuss, you said you’re a retired scientist; a chemist, yes?
Blunderbuss, imitation being the highest form of flattery, you’ll be delighted to discover you have an imitator, called Jazza:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/12/nationalisation-without-compensation/comment-page-10/#comment-808652
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/12/nationalisation-without-compensation/comment-page-10/#comment-808651
Oh good. A scientist who agrees with me.
Don’t look at this because it will annoy you:
https://realclimatescience.com/100-of-us-warming-is-due-to-noaa-data-tampering/
Blunderbuss, are you old enough to remember how many insects you’d find crushed on your wind shield just a few decades ago?
@J
I haven’t got a car.
@ Clark December 11, 2018 at 19:37
Looks like SOMETHING has been triggered:
‘The Arctic Ocean has lost 95 percent of its oldest ice — a startling sign of what’s to come’:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/12/11/arctic-is-even-worse-shape-than-you-realize/?
So the icecaps are melting even faster than predicted, yet Blunderbuss would have us believe that the measurements showing warming are actually fraudulent!
Yes of course NOAA etc. have to adjust data. The global temperature data is compiled from diverse sources using diverse methods, which have been developed over many decades for diverse purposes, many purely local. The chance that they would show perfect agreement with each other in more recent efforts to assemble a global picture is essentially zero. Adjusting data is necessary calibration, an essential and perfectly respectable step in the process of measurement.
Of course if your objective is protection of corporate profits, it is perfectly possible to cherry-pick specific adjustments and portray them as scientific fraud. But the icecaps are melting, so the global temperature must be increasing.
Blunderbuss, I repeat; you said you’re a retired scientist; a chemist, yes?
Yes. And I’m interested in real data, not “adjusted” (i.e. fiddled) data.
But you’re not interested in rapidly melting icecaps.
That is NOT a scientific attitude, Blunderbuss. If your sample is visibly going from red hot, to orange, to yellow, but your fancy sensor says its temperature is stable, suspect the damn sensor. In your case we have the opposite; for decades most measurements have been telling us that the temperature is rising, but we have some discrepancies between different measurement methods. The icecaps are melting, the glaciers are retreating, the deserts are advancing – but YOU insist the discrepancies are the true reading, the temperature is stable, and vast numbers of scientists are conspiring to fabricate data.
The big picture is unambiguous. Industry and agriculture are pumping out gigatonnes of greenhouse gasses, greenhouse gas concentrations are duly rising, measurably, and we can measure their heat-retentive properties in our own kitchens. The planet is showing multiple, massive signs of retaining extra heat, yet you try to discredit all this by any means you can get away with, no matter how shoddy I show each one to be. You really are shameless.
Your latest attempt to fool the gullible is by dismissing a vast dataset as fraudulent, even though it’s consistent with the bigger picture. Your victims can’t possibly hire the research team needed to search through something as vast as the NOAA data, so maybe this particular turd might stick. Worth a try, I suppose.
– – – – – – – –
Time to get personal, methinks. So…
In your no doubt long and distinguished scientific career, I suppose we can safely assume you spent most of your time fabricating data on behalf of the New World Order, can we? After all, that’s what scientists do, isn’t it?
Now this is Craig Murray’s blog; a former Ambassador who sacrificed his career and nearly got himself murdered by blowing the whistle on torture; a perfect website for aspiring whistleblowers. So instead of attacking strangers outside your field, start blowing. What did you fabricate? Which supposedly scientific material to your personal knowledge is actually fraudulent? We have plenty of conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxers and the like here; I’m sure you’ll go down a storm. You have your cloak of anonymity, so start spilling your own beans instead of impugning everyone else’s.
I’ve never fabricated any scientific data. When I read a thermometer, I write down what the thermometer says, not what I think it ought to say.
As to melting ice caps. They melt in the summer and re-freeze in the winter. This is normal and has been happening for millions of years. It’s nothing to worry about.
Cumulative ice loss since 1979:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Annual_Arctic_Sea_Ice_Minimum_1979-2015_with_Area_Graph.webm
So you never calibrated your instruments. Great. And you and your colleagues had integrity, but the thousands of scientists reporting global warming don’t. I know your sort:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/12/nationalisation-without-compensation/comment-page-13/#comment-808865
The problem with climate alarmists is that they think too short-term. 1980 to 2015 is the blink of an eye in the history of the world.
– “1980 to 2015 is the blink of an eye in the history of the world”
Exactly. In the blink of an eye, human activity is melting away the icecaps which have been there for millions of years. And the greenhouse gas concentrations which have caused this are not only still rising, but rising faster all the time.
YOU, Blunderbuss, are arguing for the fall of human civilisation at least, and possibly human extinction. And you do it with lies and deception, exploiting others’ ignorance. I cannot believe that a former scientist actually believes the rot you propagate. You make me feel sick.
There hasn’t always been ice at the poles:
https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Education-and-Careers/Ask-a-Geologist/Earths-Climate/How-Long-has-Earth-had-Polar-Ice-Caps
The world didn’t come to an end 33 million years ago because of lack of polar ice so why should it now?
33 million years. Fifteen times as long as the human species has existed, six thousand times the age of civilisation. Earth was effectively an alien planet then. There is NO reason to believe that our species, let alone our civilisation, could survive the transition to such a climate. And there’s no saying that those conditions would be re-established; almost anything could happen.
Human arrogance is a sight to behold. Maybe we deserve to die out. Look around your solar system, Blunderbuss; there’s nowhere else like Earth, nothing that could support us. It seems the conditions we enjoy are an unlikely happy accident.
But you’d blow all humanity has, all the trials we’ve come through, all we’ve created and learned – for a few more years of corporate profit. And you deceive, deceive, deceive to get your own way. You make me ashamed to be human.
@Clark 00:30
“But you’d blow all humanity has, all the trials we’ve come through, all we’ve created and learned – for a few more years of corporate profit. And you deceive, deceive, deceive to get your own way. You make me ashamed to be human”.
What is your evidence that I receive any corporate profit? Is it just the standard climate alarmist fantasy that anyone who disagrees with them must be working for a fossil fuel company?
My evidence is your behaviour; it benefits nothing but corporate profit to gamble the entire biosphere. As Paul Barbara might say, your god must be Mammon.
This alarm has indeed been ringing for over thirty years; what was a creeping disaster is now galloping, and yet still you attempt to herd the flock towards its own slaughter, by any subterfuge you hope might work. You disrespect your readers, taking us for sheep, by claiming the authority of science yet caring not a jot that your arguments all contradict each other, or contradict plain facts. You display contempt towards the fate of this physical world and its occupants, so mythologically, your message would be that of a demon.
Circumstantial. Who are you?
@Clark
It sounds as though I’m the devil, doesn’t it? My evil power seems to be growing by the minute. The fires of hell are fuelled by coal.
– “It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes. It may even lie on the surface; but we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions — especially selfish ones.”
– “It is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions.”
Excuse me. I’m just going down my coal mine to earn another million pounds.
On the decline of the insects. There are very few to be seen here in SE England. The house martins and bats whose diet consisted of insects were prolific but they have disappeared too. Years ago there were swarms of insects in great variety.
The Deathly Insect Dilemma
by Robert Hunziker / December 7th, 2018
Insect abundance is plummeting with wild abandon, worldwide! Species evolve and go extinct as part of nature’s normal course over thousands and millions of years, but the current rate of devastation is off the charts and downright scary.
Moreover, there is no quick and easy explanation for this sudden emergence of massive loss around the globe.
Yet, something is dreadfully horribly wrong. Beyond doubt, it is not normal for 50%-to-90% of a species to drop dead, but that is happening right now from Germany to Australia to Puerto Rico’s tropical rainforest.
Scientists are rattled. The world is largely unaware of the implications because it is all so new. It goes without saying that the risk of loss of insects spells loss of ecosystems necessary for very important stuff, like food production.
Farmland birds that depend upon a diet of insects in Europe have disappeared by >50% in just three decades. French farmland partridge flocks have crashed by 80%. Nightingale abundance is down by almost 80%. Turtledoves are down nearly 80%. In Denmark (1) owls, (2) Eurasian hobbies, and (3) Bee-eaters, which subsist on large insects like beetles and dragonflies, have abruptly disappeared.
/..https://dissidentvoice.org/2018/12/the-deathly-insect-dilemma/
Insecticides. They kill insects.
It’s not as simple as just saying ‘insecticides’. Many of the species targetted by insecticides, such as aphids, are among those least affected. This crisis is not well understood. It’s not even well quantified.
In capitalism’s headlong rush to exploit everything, monitoring and research has been left hopelessly underfunded. Such research is labour intensive; many thousands of field workers are required to monitor insect populations and their habitats, but such work is neither glamorous nor well paid, and can only lead to regulations that would reduce corporate profit.
And if it is understood before it’s too late, we can expect swathes of deniers inventing and propagating facile, unscientific quips, and smears against the scientific bodies, to discredit the science on behalf of corporate profit, just as we see with global warming.
I’ve been expecting somebody to say that insects are being exterminated by global warming but nobody has actually said it yet. I’m surprised, because global warming seems to be causing everything else that goes wrong in the world, including Brexit. MPs brains are being fried by global warming, you see.
.
Is BB a provocateur?
If so (people!). . . why rise to the bait?
.
* * *
– “why rise to the bait?”
Because the argument proceeds in public.
Madame Lagarde’s deputy issues a warning about the precarious financial situation.
IMF warns storm clouds are gathering for next financial crisis
Deputy head David Lipton says global banking system is not prepared for another downturn
11 Dec 2018
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/dec/11/imf-financial-crisis-david-lipton
Here’s how the BBC rewrites articles (Statecraft) to suit the narrative.
https://mobile.twitter.com/scotnews_edits/status/1072280211541164032
Now check the edited version.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-46509956?__twitter_impression=true
Strange Craig is so quiet here on this blog on something right up his street, on this Integrity Initiative: (II) or (ii) or even Aye, Aye affair. He must surely know many of the people named in the documents, especially those with the @fco.gov.uk email addresses. On independence, on Salmond, for which subjects Herald’s David Leask seems be the go to guy; on the mysterious dark hints attributed to Wikileaks that *some* of the docs may be inauthentic, so much, silence. The big surprise for me was finding Craig Murray himself was apparently not involved, he does Russia-bashing in his sleep, would hardly require training or ‘workshops’. Unless he’s at the head of the thing and meets with them with a sheet over his head and know one knows him other than by the name of X.
“On independence, on Salmond, for which subjects Herald’s David Leask seems be the go to guy;”
Leasky boy, is anything but the go to guy, on any subject, except mince.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/?s=David+leask
Craig isn’t a committed blogger, but an occasional one. Which is fine, he no doubt has other things to do.
Now the Government admit that three employees of the #IntegrityInitiative are also members of UK Forces – how deep does the rabbit hole go @AlanDuncanMP?
https://twitter.com/DerbyChrisW/status/1072471706642644993
A relevant ‘conversation’ on the Lifeboat News (successor to the Medialens Message Board) which was set up by Dan, a good young doctor, when the Medialens editors closed the message board.
http://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/thread/1544549876.html
Fair play to Chris Williamson MP . A video explaining the integrity initiative .
https://twitter.com/DerbyChrisW/status/1072508801025232896
funny that it was uk column that initially broadcast this yet no comment is made about their undertaking – no, it has been co-opted by the labour party to say it was about them when actually, it’s about covert operations and smears about russia – don’t let integrity get in the way of a good story hey
@ bob December 11, 2018 at 19:55
Funny that you don’t seem to have listened very well to Chris Williamson’s video link above: he quite clearly says that their agenda ‘..seems to include the denigration of the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn…’
‘..don’t let facts get in the way of a good dig, hey.’
I heard that it was Anonymous.
They have said that they will leak all the info into the public domain.
What part do you object to, that the UK government appears to have broken a number of laws, that we don’t have a democracy, that the mainstream media are exposed as liers or that they got caught?
New post, please, Craig!
We really are in a mess. Blast the man in a pink condom (Agent Cameron as I call him) for initiating the damned referendum.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/11/eu-steps-up-plans-for-no-deal-brexit-as-merkel-rebuffs-may