Thoughts on UK Politics 506


3.1% of those eligible to vote bothered to go to a polling station and vote Tory in an important UK wide election last week. That’s 1 voter in every 33. Yet the Tory Party is shortly going to choose internally, from within its despised ranks, the next Prime Minister of the UK, even though that Tory Party does not even command a majority at Westminster. That is how dysfunctional the UK constitution has become.

Meantime the SNP were runaway victors in Scotland and Sinn Fein topped the poll on first preferences in Northern Ireland. The UK is disintegrating before our eyes. I pray the SNP leadership finally discovers the courage to seize the moment.

There is a huge amount of wishful thinking in the popular twitter meme that SNP, Libdem, Change plus Green votes just outweigh Brexit plus UKIP votes. This wilfully ignores the fact that a very high percentage of the residual Tory vote are Brexiteers- their Remainers have, like Heseltine, decamped their vote to the LibDems. Any Remainer voting Tory would be certifiable.

The figures are also distorted by adding in Scotland. In Scotland the SNP, Green and Lib Dem vote outweighed the Brexit and Ukip vote by a massive four to one. Scotland being 11% of the total vote in this election, that tilts the overall calculation towards Remain by a full net 5% (duly allowing for the small Tory and Labour votes in Scotland). If you do the figures for England alone, it is absolutely plain that the people of England wish to Brexit. Nobody has the right to stop England from Brexiting as it wishes. What is needed is a mature and friendly acceptance that this means the UK must split.

I stood twice for election in Parliamentary elections in England as an independent anti-war candidate. The first time, in Blackburn in 2005, the BBC broadcast a radio debate between the candidates but excluded me on the basis that I had “no evidence of popular support.” I polled 5.0%.

When I stood later in Norwich, the same thing happened again, and I pointed out that I had obtained 5% in Blackburn. The BBC told me that 5% was not enough public support to be given airtime.

I shall be fascinated to see if they apply that to Change UK and their 3%. Don’t hold your breath. I am rather proud that just on my own, with a few blog readers helping, I am more popular with the electorate than this massively hyped new political party.

I was a Liberal, then a Liberal Democrat, member for over 30 years. I made the stupid mistake of not realising how far the party had moved to the right during my years of working abroad, and anyone who has any understanding of history will know that for the party of Gladstone, Rosebery and Home Rule to brand itself as a Unionist party is an abomination. So there is little remaining affection, but nevertheless I would advise my remaining LibDem friends not to contemplate any kind of merger, alliance or accommodation with ChangeUK.

The LibDems are on the up, whereas ChangeUK are on the way to oblivion. Politically ChangeUK, with its unrepentant Tories and the right of the right wing Blairites, would drag the LibDems still further rightward and make remote the chance of living down the coalition betrayals that almost destroyed the party. Finally, why the LibDems would want to import the most virulent and corrupt pro-Israel lobbying in the UK into the party is beyond me. ChangeUK should simply be ignored on its route to entirely deserved extinction.


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506 thoughts on “Thoughts on UK Politics

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    • BrianFujisan

      Robyn

      As Caitlin says, Jarring news.. Very disturbing, and so sad to hear.. Thanks for the Alert.

        • BrianFujisan

          Borncynical
          Amazing Coincidence, I was just thinking I haven’t visited Mr Dimmack for a while.. He dose very good Shows, Cheers.

          • Borncynical

            Brian,

            Glad to be of help. He’s new to me so, based on your and @Wiki’s endorsement, I shall carry on dipping in to his broadcasts.

            J.

      • Republicofscotland

        Brian.

        Had a brief chat with Blair Jenkins today, he thinks that they’ll be a second indyref next year. I asked him if he’ll be involved in it one way or another, and he said yes.

        • BrianFujisan

          Good Stuff RoS

          Gordon Ross had an Fbook poll where so 69% wand a Reff in September 2019, as opposed to Sept 2020.

          Did you see this from that Sajid Javid Cretin.

          In a tweet on Wednesday, Sajid Javid wrote: “If I become PM, I won’t allow a second Scottish independence referendum. People stated views clearly in 2014, so there should be no second vote. Nicola Sturgeon should spend more time improving public services in Scotland, and less time grandstanding”.

          Nicola’s Response –

          Memo to Tory leadership candidates: A majority of Scots – independence supporters and opponents alike – will not accept being told by a Tory PM that we are not ‘allowed’ to choose our own future (& PS, you have a lot to learn about good public service delivery from @theSNP gov)
          — Nicola Sturgeon

          • Republicofscotland

            Yeah Brian I doubt any of the Tory PM candidates would give sanction to a S30.

            I see Patrick Harvey quite a lot in the Westend and cycling along Eglington Toll, for a small guy in a tweed suit on a Hovis style bike, he sure can move. I’d like to catch him one day and ask him what he thinks of the possibility of the indyref timetable being a viable one.

            I thought the Greens faired poorly in Scotland in the EU vote, when the Greens across Europe made gains. If Scotland had been a independent country, I’m sure Harveys party would’ve done better, but our hopes lie with the SNP for the moment so they got the votes.

    • Charles Bostock

      Convicted fraudster Ernest Saunders used grave illness as his get out of gaol card as well (Alzheimer’s in his case). And then staged a miraculous recovery and lived happi!y ever after.

      • giyane

        Bostick

        Ernest Saunders wasn’t getting his brain-cells lithiumed for daring to challenge USUKIS hegemony, was he?

      • remember kronstadt

        Yes Charles, and you must remember that there were questions about Pinochet’s allegedly fragile health. After medical tests, Home Secretary Jack Straw ruled in January 2000 that he should not be extradited. How humanitarian.

      • pretzelattack

        why are you comparing a target of persecution to a convicted criminal? has assange been convicted of anything?

        • Ort

          One mustn’t allow oneself to be deterred or distracted by inconvenient, niggling facts when attempting “guilt by association”.

        • Charles Bostock

          Convicted of jumping bail, for the moment. Possible future conviction(s) in the US.

      • Twirlip

        Bostock – just to be quite clear –

        Are you accusing the lawyer Per Samuelson of lying about his client’s state of health? Are you also branding as liars those doctors who visited Assange and reported that he badly needed medical care – which he didn’t get? (At the time, that is. Let’s just hope that he’s getting some appropriate care now.)

        If so, is this because you have some inside information about the matter? Or do you consider Assange’s years of confinement unlikely to have affected his health, in spite of the obvious drastic change in his appearance, and in spite of the testimony of those who know or have met him (including doctors), and in spite of all that common sense would suggest?

        We also know that he is now in the medical wing of the prison. (By the way, are you claiming that he has managed to fool the prison’s medical staff?) We don’t know what drugs he is being given, with or without consent.

        Or do you claim to have some information about that? If so, do share what you know. As Caitlin Johnstone writes, “Now we’re seeing all sorts of rumors circulating about how Assange is faring in prison, and it gets difficult to sort out fact from fiction.” Are you helping with that?

        Also, are you seriously suggesting that if Assange were to fake illness, he would be released, and the threat of prosecution, extradition, and further imprisonment would just disappear? How likely do you honestly think that is?

        You evidently aren’t joking; so if you aren’t seriously suggesting any of those things, then what are you doing? Please explain.

    • Jack

      Not surprising, being “locked” up for 7,8 years plus being charged with grave and bogus accusations, that would literally kill anyone mentally..
      Tellingly the response by the liberals in the media. Human rights lovers? Yeah right. Horrible hypocrite people.

  • Kerch'eee Kerch'ee Coup

    Congratulations to Clare Daly on gaining the third Dublin seat in the EU elections (a fourth becomes open if and when Brexit finally occurs) for Independents4change. Glad to see her Free Assange T-shirt getting screen time and on her being ‘gobsmacked’ at winning the seat.rather than the usual self-satisfied expressions of entitlement.

  • Tony M

    I had hoped the BBC in Scotland might have hired on taken on as interns some of the more incendiary student body or old alumni of Glasgow School of Art, who could bring some gas bottles and firelighters to work with them to show off their ‘art’. Napalm might be the only way to drive the rats out of the tunnels under the Ministry of Truth sludge tank at Pacific Quay.

    Reading this site today reminds me how so of touch with real world most of its commentors are, their leftist posturing is all virtue-signalling cultural Marxism, a twisted substitute for the signature and immutable policy of the left, actual economic redistributionism of the in-group, that is one’s fellows in some bond we once called nation or country, that community thing, which logically and necessitously, economically must exclude almost all of the earth’s teeming billions. Austerity it seems is a thing that happens to other people, once implicitly or so they thought of the in-group but somehow othered, something far away in another country and compartment of their mind experienced by the media and chattering strata of the middle classes remotely with a shiver and rather too much smug relief, as they browse the car showrooms, books this year’s next holiday or consider their next property speculation, people generally if employed at all and not just rentier filth, then in some make-work non-job doing things which society would be better off in every way if they weren’t done at all. Austerity is very many people having a standard of living markedly lower than their parents or even grandparents had. Basic benefits, old Incapacity Benefit or its new name ESA, have hardly increased in absolute terms by more than a few pence since 1999, while decades of real inflation much of it hidden from the figures, has decimated their spending power. The poor in general aren’t online venting, they most likely haven’t computers or phones, or power, they’re not yet homeless their every hard-won possession and keep-sake tossed in a skip, but they’re not far off that all the while deftly managing somehow to thwart the indomitable joint efforts of the NHS and DWP to euthanise kill them off.

    It’s strange that in elections for the Scottish Parliament, Westminster or local government the SNP too often are at pains, contorted in knots so completely to point out that a vote for the SNP isn’t a vote for Independence, it’s doubly odd and galling then for them to claim that in the EU MEP elections not only is it not a vote for independence but does apparently show implicit support for the EU. By all means remain while England laces up its jackboots and relives the 1930s and leaves orbit, but remain Scotland in the knowledge it’s fundamentally corrupt, stupendously undemocratic, and iredeemably dire, which takes us back to frying-pans and fires.

    • Hatuey

      Didn’t get past the first two lines… seek attention elsewhere, whoever you are.

      • Sharp Ears

        The sentences are like paragraphs. You did well to reach the end of two of them. I couldn’t.

      • glenn_nl

        @Haughty: “seek attention elsewhere, whoever you are.”

        Seek attention somewhere else yourself, pal. Tony M has been around here one heck of a lot longer than you, for instance.

        While I might not agree with Tony M at times, he does actually make a point well. Perhaps you dismiss others a little hastily. Try making the effort to read past the first two lines, it really does improve understanding.

  • Hatuey

    Sajid Javid: “If I become PM, I won’t allow a second Scottish independence referendum.”

    Tory leadership contenders are competing on the basis of who will humiliate and punish Scotland the most and we have a shower of jobsworth blazer-types, elected on a mandate for independence, responding with a respect for authority you’d struggle to find outside the bowling clubs and Masonic Lodges of Ayrshire.

    • Republicofscotland

      Its not just Javid that opposes a second vote McVey, Stewart, Hancock and Cleverly have all, publicly stated that if they become PM they’d vehemently oppose a second referendum.

      I think we can safely add the names of Johnson, Gove etc to that list.

      For a country that’s supposedly dependent of state handouts to get by, they are mighty desperate to hang onto us.

      • Hatuey

        Yes, as I said, they are competing on the basis of who is willing to humiliate us the most. The question that naturally follows is ‘how do you respond to bullying?’

    • nevermind

      What a shower on offer, Hatuey, all of them trying to stab the first row of candidates from behind. One sticks out, despite his elite education and past MI life. Rory Stewart at least had a life and knows that our history as well as our economy is tied to Europe, just as it was 2000 years ago. He’s the best of the lot, but I bet that they are all bitching about each other, outmanoeuvring and calling each other names.
      Mind, all of their phones are likely been listened to, entertaining Rory’s past colleagues.
      Javid McVey and Raab are all toxic, Raab and Mc Vey forming a right wing tag team out bidding the others on hard measures to take in future, these two would be a calamity to elect.

      • Hatuey

        I forget who once described Rory Stewart as a “bucket full of teeth”, and that’s a good description, but the point is there really isn’t much more to him than that. I regard him as a decidedly awkward and creepy person. I understand his father was big in the intelligence services and that probably explains a lot — you’d need to be a certifiable oddball to do that sort of stuff.

        • Vivian O'Blivion

          I was musing just yesterday on how Rory stays so skinny and pondered whether he was on the junkie diet. Whatjano turns out that he’s no stranger to the poppy.

          • fwl

            What crap your talking Viv ands Hat.

            It’s sad or funny how both on both Craig and Guido there is a fear about Rory Stewart that manifests itself in a very similar banal way. Yet he is the candidate who makes an intelligent effort to engage with issues and whoever is interviewing him. Unlike 99% of politicians he doesn’t evade or answer a different question with pre-scripted tosh.

          • Hatuey

            fwl, it’s of no consequence to me who leads a party that has been earmarked for extinction.

      • Mist001

        Rory Stewart actually has aevery chance of becoming PM. When he was unheard of maybe 5 or 6 years ago, he was invited to and attended, a Bilderberg meeting which makes his chances higher than the others.

    • Mary Pau!

      I have no idea which voters Javid is appealing to here. Most ordinary Brits, in my experience, are happy for the Scots to be given independence. Is Javid trying to get the Scottish establishment, who are happy with the status quo, on side? Or is he trying to reassure the City banksters?

      • Hatuey

        They are trying to appeal to the managerial classes and those who read the Financial Times — in other words, those who know Britain or England would struggle to get by without the regular and reliable income provided by Scottish exports, chiefly oil.

      • michael norton

        TONY BLAIR received a financial reward of around £3,000 from the EU in recognition for his services to European integration just years before he helped to double Britain’s contributions to the bloc budget, unearthed reports reveal.

        He is scum.
        His wife has just admitted she now votes LibDem

        They are traitors to the Labour Cause

    • Vivian O'Blivion

      Don’t get all the faux indignation about Javid’s tweet. Although it was never put to the legal test (due to Cameron reaching an agreement) it is (highly?) probably that a binding IndRef II needs the authorisation of a UK Prime Minister. Holyrood is home to the Scottish “Government” because Salmond rebranded the Assembly. Holyrood is a pimped up Local Cooncil, hence the need for independence.

    • Rhys Jaggar

      I am not sure the English are that keen on the Tories any more to be honest. You might do well to work out what the Brexit Party’s view will be. Or even the Libdems.

      Labour and Conservative are in last chance saloon and one more round of perjury and they will be on death row.

      • Hatuey

        Really? I think Labour have played a blinder. I think the Tories are finished for about 15 years at best but labour have room to re-position themselves and will do so when the time is right. They could do that now but it makes sense to let the Tories destroy themselves first.

        • Ian

          A blinder?? You jest. They are just as divided and all over the place as the tories, and are haemorrhaging support. Another nasty shock awaits next week in Peterborough, one of their seats. When is the time right? Jam tomorrow.

          • Hatuey

            It’s Labour policy to not have a policy. They aren’t the government and so can’t be held responsible for Brexit, especially if they have no policy.

  • Sharp Ears

    In these straitened times (see the lack of central government funding for adult socal care in tonight’s BBC documentary) this was a snip at £100million.

    Government spends almost £100m on Brexit consultants
    Exclusive: leaked Whitehall report criticises departments for lack of transparency.
    (Guardian headline today)

    Fits well with Grayling’s disastrous deals on cross channel ferries and the like. By the way, where is he? It’s all gone quiet!

    • nevermind

      The Bbc just showed its gullibillity and sucker for new technology, demonstrating the switch on of 5G by using it for the first time to broadcast their picture and sound interview.
      Well, for about 10 seconds and then it flickered and went all wishy washy. Moreover there was no alternative communications ready to take over, no quick switchover to continue the interview, how very proffessional to assume it to work first time.

      Followed by a few words from an embarrassed Clive Myrie.

  • Chemical Britain

    Hi Craig, what do you think about the SNP’s referendum legislation in the Scottish parliament?

    Isn’t it just window dressing by Mrs Sturgeon?

    Do you believe she has a Plan B when the UK Prime Minister tells her to f off when she goes begging for a Section 30 permission to hold a referendum?

    • Al

      That’s going to be a popular reaction among Scots.
      Particularly if it leaks out of gob of BloJo.

    • Goose

      Can’t fathom why the SNP are making the case for independence all about UK EU membership(or not).

      As if independence doesn’t have merits on its own. It weakens the case for independence as not all Scots are enthralled by the EU, and leaves the SNP’s argument for it vulnerable to obsolescence, should there be another EU poll and the UK were to stay in.

  • michael norton

    Boris Johnson is going to trial.
    I know Boris is unpopular on this blog but please spare a little thought for the loss of Democracy.

    • Jo1

      So you’re defending his right to lie to the electorate? How very gallant of you.

      • MJ

        It wasn’t a lie. He quoted the gross amount rather than the net amount, after rebates. A bit like quoting a gross salary before tax. It may be misleading but it isn’t a lie. It should have been £250 million net (not to be be sniffed at, can think of far better uses).

        • giyane

          MJ
          Comes plain
          Liars see no need to clarify the parameters of their lies. Truthtellers qualify everything the say so that the true meaning is plain. Reverse the lie and all becomes plain.

          Britain does not spend £3.5 million every week on the EU because we also get back one million every week.

          All professionals are professional liars and they all stick together.
          If the high court rules he wasn’t lying, that does not mean he wasn’t lying. It means all professionals lie all the time. Politicians really don’t like it up ’em. Because they couldn’t accept the double think of the EU withdrawal agreement.

          It makes them understand what a shaftee of the lie feels when professionals shaft them.

          Boris has no reputation to defend.
          He’s such a tart.

          • Bayard

            “Britain does not spend £3.5 million every week on the EU because we also get back one million every week.”

            However, no-one, (except, perhaps you and your man of straw) said that they did. What they said was that the UK sends (yes that’s “sends”, which is like “spends”, but without the “p”) the EU £350 million a week. There is a difference.

        • Ingwe

          No MJ. He knew the figure of £350 million a week was wrong because the institute of Fiscal studies told him, and the chair of the UK Statistics authority told him. As it is phrased in the proceedings:
          “…the Chair has described the use of the figure by Mr Johnson as “a clear misuse of official statistics” The Chair, Sir David Norgrove, observed further directly to Mr Johnson that:
          “I am surprised and disappointed that you have chosen to repeat the figure of £350 million per week in connection with the amount that might be available extra public spending when we leave the European Union”

          So not just a mistake over net or gross.

      • Tony

        By it’s very definition, a suggestion is not a lie. The big lies were told by remain supporters, the ones about huge rises in unemployment and huge rises in taxes, that they said would happen immediately after a vote for brexit. And the leading figure in these huge lies was the one person in the country who knew better: the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne. As much a I despise BoJo, Osborne is the one who should be up in court for telling Brexit lies. But it won’t happen, for the same reason that revolting scumbags like Blair will not ever face justice: they represent the traditional Establishment and their globalist masters.

        • Bayard

          “The big lies were told by remain supporters, the ones about huge rises in unemployment and huge rises in taxes,”

          Strictly speaking, they weren’t lies either, but they were misleading, which amounts to the same thing. All the Remain propaganda was conditional. “Might”, “may” and “could” being the main words they used to present worst-case scenarios as almost definite future happenings. Still, we wouldn’t have had Brexit without Project Fear, a real case of the engineer being hoist by his own petard.

        • Hatuey

          Tony: “told by remain supporters, the ones about huge rises in unemployment and huge rises in taxes, that they said would happen immediately after a vote for brexit.”

          Can you source or validate that?

      • Rola Joint

        If a politician was jailed for being a liar nearly all of them would be in the clink.

    • Bones and Dirt

      What is this “Democracy” of which you speak? All I see is a shrinking fig leaf. Chilling.

      My money’s on Rory Stewart for next PM. As our esteemed host pointed out some time ago, Rory’s the deep state’s man. The spook’s house journal has been cheer-leading for him for days now.

      • giyane

        B & D

        The Tories need a Brexit expert to complete the job. They need compromise and unity or they are toast.

        Rory Stuart is busy recruiting criminals from prisons to employ as spies when 5G goes live.

        There again GOVE has been battering up the landed classes with Dollops of saved EU dosh.

        Stick a pin an where you like on the dead donkey. Them bones them dry bones not going to join together for another 100 years… by which time you and I will be bones and dust.

        • BrianFujisan

          Your up Early Sharp Ears
          Maybe some for your Notes –

          Assange is being chemically lobotomized prior to being extradited to the United States to stand trial on bogus computer hacking charges that—and the corporate media won’t tell you this—passed the statute of limitations three years ago (see 18 U.S. Code § 371. Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States).

          Forget about the statute of limitations. The US government has long violated both domestic and international law. It is a rogue nation led by an ignorant clown who opened the back door and ushered in neocon psychopaths notorious for killing millions. In normal times, these criminals would be in the dock at The Hague standing trial for crimes against humanity. But we don’t live in normal times.

          https://www.globalresearch.ca/julian-assange-tortured-psychotropic-drug/5676921?

          • David

            i tracked down a couple more relevant UK politics links,
            the Sun being accurate about Julian – seems theres a first time for everything when the state is worrying and abusing journalists
            https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9181699/julian-assange-hospital-wikileaks-weight-loss-health/

            and in the US, analysis too from conservative journalists, highly skeptical of ‘espionage act’ claims
            https://thehill.com/opinion/cybersecurity/445783-espionage-act-should-exempt-journalists-whether-assange-is-real

          • giyane

            Brian

            Everybody who says what the UK state doesn’t like is likely to be chemically lobotomised. The liberal state objected to me getting angry about Thatcherism and my wife’s adultery. They stuck me in a mental hospital and stuck her on a course to become a vicar in the Church of England.

            She brought up my children bonking the next door neighbour by night and her builder by day. She got the builder to clean the house to explain why he was upstairs during the day. Anyway during this chaotic period my son and my daughter were sexually abused and when they started having mental health problems their mum took them to mental hospitals to shut them up or as she put it, put them under control.

            The Tories , when they talk about increasing spending on mental health, mean chemicaĺly lobotomising anybody who dares to disagree with liberal sexuality and liberal capitalism.

            We are a fascist state in the fullest meaning of the word.
            Assange will survive. But western capitalism will also survive, even though it experiences regular total breakdowns – the last in 2007, the next one starting with brexit melt-down.
            Both melt-downs coming from Thatcherite policies.
            WHICH YOU WILL -OBEY AT ALL TIMES

          • Charles Bostock

            Can we drop all this nonsense about Assange being deliberately (chemically) driven mad in prison? His behaviour over the last ten years or so shows clearly that he’s had a screw loose for a long time.

          • Twirlip

            Bostock –

            You insinuated yesterday that the reason for Assange’s current behaviour is that he is faking illness. Now, just one day later, you are saying instead that it because he has been insane for 10 years. Have you come into possession of new information, in this short period, about the state he is in (or should that be, the State he is in?) that has caused you to completely change your mind about his physical and mental state – while continuing to show exactly the same level of concern about it?

          • Mist001

            I wondered if he was actually being deliberately slowly poisoned in prison. I did say a few weeks ago that I thought he might be assassinated just to get rid of the problem altogether. Maybe this is it?

      • certa certi

        So, MI6 recruits the son of a former MI6 boss and posts him overseas using his birth name? Really? Cover blown from the start, his exciting new career as a covert officer would almost certainly have been be over in weeks, leaving him reduced to the status of a declared agent operating as a liason, at best. I was in Indonesia and Timor at the same time as Mr Stewart. MI6 lent a useful hand hiding Mr Gusmao and smuggling him out of the country after his release from jail, when he was in considerable danger. The operational MI6 officer involved was certainly not Mr Stewart. Nigeria was known at the time as one of the two busiest MI6 posts and all those posted there would have been profiled by adversaries. It was also where MI6 sent their dribbling cockups.

      • michael norton

        Bones and Dirt, it is rather simple, seventeen and a half million people voted for Brexit, which was one and a third million, more people than those who voted Remain.
        Apparently Boris is a Hard Leave person, so this is about knocking his chances of becoming the next Prime minister and installing a No Brexit puppet, thus knocking Democracy down a couple of pegs, to show us our views are not required by the Elite who rule over us.

      • Wikikettle

        Bones and Dirt. Yes Rory Stewart is today’s Lawrence of ‘Arabia’

  • J

    Seems a fairly accurate statement. Are they actually interested in freedom and democracy? Can what proclaims itself as centrism be defined? Do the beliefs and actions of centrists betray an interest in freedom or democracy? is centrism better defined as the smiley face of class warfare? Centrism seems to include the art of saying very little at great length. But then one would have to argue that Jordan Peterson is a centrist or that I am. Perhaps Centrism is the ability to regurgitate neoliberal economic doctrine unconvincingly and cleave to neo-conservative war posturing unconvincingly and trying to offend as few people as possible while actually killing them. Or perhaps centrism is the ability to dissociate oneself sufficiently to hold a dozen contrary ideas in mind at once.

    Anway, part of the liberal media outcry (and therefore the centrist outcry) against Assange must be that their discomfort level is rising, probably due to better informed consent.

    • J

      Orphaned response to a deleted statement by ‘Mike’ about centrism, ‘objective violence’ and subjective violence against other ethnic cultures.

  • Tony

    It’s worrying, for sure. Julian’s Swedish lawyer’s main concern is that he is largely incoherent, which ties in with the stories about mental torture and possibly being drugged.

  • Sharp Ears

    What a muddle and what confusion. Thanks to Cameron and May the country is still divided. What next? I can’t see anything changing whoever is chosen from the list of 11 replacements for May. That choice depends on the paid up members of the Tory party, 124,000. A wonderful democracy.

    May 28, 2019
    No, “Remain” did NOT win the European Elections
    https://off-guardian.org/2019/05/28/no-remain-did-not-win-the-european-elections/

    To read some of the comments completely, you have to click on ‘read more’. Annoying.

    • giyane

      Sharp Ears

      In Kurdistan because Dictator Barzani has not paid state salaries for six years Baghdad sent five payments to him for government employees like teachers and hospital staff.
      Barzani has eaten two parts out of five which he has presumably given as a dividend to his backers USUKIS who put him in power after the 2003 Iraq invasion.

      Does anyone really believe that a nation that illegally conquered a sovereign nation for its oil did not also steal the money from the banks in 2007? That’s like saying thieves broke into a bank and stole a portrait of the Queen on the manager’s office wall. Heil Thatcher! :
      Our bullion funds their sick joke of empire2 and brexit. They pinch everything that moves.

      • Laguerre

        Barzani’s the one who’s hand-in-glove with Israel. That’s what happens when your main advisors are Israeli.

  • Crispa

    I admire greatly all those who have posted their their many interesting “thoughts on UK politics”. With the way things are mine are far too scrambled to offer anything remotely coherent.

  • Sharp Ears

    Listening to Theresa May speaking to an audience at the centre right wing Policy Exchange** think tank this morning, you would not think that the Tories had been in power since 2010. She was bemoaning the fact that the technical colleges are dwindling in number and failing and that universities are not providing degrees (at high cost incidentally) that are of benefit to the students or the taxpayers.

    She quoted a statistic that 24% of German workers have a technical qualification whereas only 4% of British workers are so qualified.

    Questions were taken from chosen named journos! One from the Torygraph who she knew as ‘Charles’!

    The Augar Review (see below) of tertiary education has called for a ‘rebalancing’ whatever that means. I should imagine the problem is one of funding as in many other areas. The bankers went off with our £billions in 2008.

    **’Founders -Michael Gove, Nick Boles, Archie Norman, Francis Maude’
    https://policyexchange.org.uk/about-us/

    Cut university tuition fees to £7,500 and bring back grants for poorer students, report recommends
    https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/education/dr-augar-review-post-18-education-suggests-uni-tuition-fees-cut-1-6078795

    • pete

      Shouldn’t the Policy Exchange be called a “self appointed, so called Think Tank”

  • Republicofscotland

    O/T.

    Assange moved to prison hospital, he’s said to be very poorly.

    • Republicofscotland

      Assange’s lawyer just said Julian is too ill to appear by video link with regards to court today.

      • M

        On 22. May in the relative thread, I wrote:
        …………

        1) Has the sending J.A. in such a prison (max security) for such a minor crime and his isolation, been legally explained/excused?
        Is there a precedent where a “bail-jumper” has spent his sentence in such a prison and not able to consult his lawyers for such a long time?

        2) How come Pamela Anderson and Kristinn Hrafnsson can visit Assange in prison, but he cannot communicate with his lawyers or family?

        3) Is there a source with reliable information about J. Assange’s current health?

        Since I haven’t found any answers and in the light of the more recent info snippets concerning the current condition of J.A.
        I would like to add the following and perhaps ask Mr Murray (who is a friend of J. Assange) for his own thoughts:

        1) Are the authorities required by the law to report/inform on the health condition of prisoners, at least to his legal team and immediate family?Especially in this “high profile” case?

        2) Is there a U.K. legal team for J.Asssange, other than the lawyer who handles the Swedish case? Are they doing anything for the appalling treatment their client receives at the moment?

        3) Have the U.K. lawyers, jurists e.t.c and their unions/associations have anything to say about all this?

      • lysias

        I heard earlier this morning on Radio Sputnik that, because of his condition, Assange’s hearing has been postponed for a week or more.

  • Loony

    I assume all SNP supporters to be rational, reasonable, consistent and logically coherent.

    I therefore expect a deluge of support from both the SNP and its supporters for the position of the beleaguered Boris Johnson. After all it was none other than Nicola Sturgeon who informed an SNP conference that “Fracking is now banned in Scotland” It was none other than Nicola Sturgeon who sequestrated taxpayers money in order to obtain a legal judgement that the statement “Fracking is now banned in Scotland” could not be reasonably interpreted as meaning that there was any ban on Fracking in Scotland.

    Clearly if you are in any way associated with the SNP and you do not denounce the action launched against Boris Johnson then you are not rational, reasonable, consistent or logically coherent. I am sure that you cannot possibly hold the mass of the Scottish population in such abject contempt that you think they will vote for a party with the bizarre strap line of “Irrational, Unreasonable, Inconsistent and Logically Incoherent”

    • Republicofscotland

      Of course you conveniently omit, or more likely haven’t checked, that Sturgeon and the SNP have amended their position on fracking. I doubt Boris Johnson will tread such a path.

      “The SNP website, which previously stated that “the Scottish Government has put a ban on fracking in Scotland”, has been updated. It now says: “No fracking can take place in Scotland at this time”.

      We should also bear in mind the likes of Farage and the disingenuous billboard showing immigrant from Romania heading for Britain, and many Tory ministers who claimed Brexit would make us better off, of which their own White paper showed that, those statement were lies.

      I suggest you clean up your own house first.

      • Loony

        I did not conveniently omit anything. Obviously the SNP had to amend their position – after all they had no effective choice after seeking and obtaining a legal judgement that the phrase “Fracking is banned in Scotland” could not be reasonably interpreted as meaning that Fracking was banned in Scotland.

        Nigel Farage has no role in the SNP. He did not advise Nicola Sturgeon to make the claim that “Fracking is banned in Scotland” and neither did he suggest to the SNP that they obtain a legal judgement regarding the meaning of this phrase

        Whilst your comment contains little more than misdirection and evasion I can see clearly now the rain has gone. I can see that you are in fact highly supportive of those who are irrational, unreasonable,inconsistent and logically incoherent.

        Alternatively maybe you are operating under deep cover and are in fact an agent for Nigel Farage. If so then you did a good job as he obtained something around 14% of the vote in Scotland.

        • Ian

          If you had any idea of what you are attempting to talk about, rather than the usual tortured attempts to murder logic and reason, then you would understand why the current ambiguous position obtains. Clue: it is to do with legislative issues surrounding what powers a devolved administration has, its legal obligations and limits on what it can do, and the potential workaround which involves the use of planning legislation, which has its own problems and liabilities. But then, you would not be interested in the actual facts, since they don’t conform to your hysterical tirades and ludicrous ‘if you believe this, or support that…..then you must advocate murdering children’ and the such laughable premises and conclusions you concoct. I suppose it entertains your need for ego gratification, though.

          • Loony

            Surprisingly for a person of your intellect you have omitted to mention the link between the “legislative issues surrounding what powers a devolved administration has…” and how these issues compelled Nicola Sturgeon to utter the words “Fracking is banned in Scotland”

            No doubt a simple oversight on your part.

      • MJ

        “Tory ministers who claimed Brexit would make us better off, of which their own White paper showed that, those statement were lies”

        It’s all conjecture. They might turn out to be right and the White Paper wrong. Who knows?

        A lie is a deliberate attempt to deceive. Just being wrong is not the same as lying.

        • Republicofscotland

          MJ.

          You are either mightly optimistic, or deeply naive. Haven’t you been paying attention to the job losses, and firms fleeing the UK for Europe, the loss of doctors and hospital staff, the re-assigning of EU bodies out of the UK and into Europe.

          We already had the best deal we could get from the EU, if one were to remain. Any Brexit deal will be vastly inferior if one emerges at all.

          • MJ

            We’re all doomed. I’m sure maintaining the ability to distinguish between fact and conjecture is a terrible thing these days. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

          • Bayard

            “Haven’t you been paying attention to the job losses,”

            Yes, we never had any job losses before Brexit, did we?

            “and firms fleeing the UK for Europe, the loss of doctors and hospital staff,”

            The Tories have made the worst cock-up possible of leaving the EU. It is hardly surprising that there are bad effects of this. That doesn’t mean to say that those effects are essentially due to the UK leaving the EU and not simply the result of the chaos caused by Tory incompetence.

            “the re-assigning of EU bodies out of the UK and into Europe.”

            Well, duh! If the UK is leaving the EU, then of course EU bodies are going to be relocated away. This can hardly be advanced as some sort of unexpected effect.

  • Sharp Ears

    Is this a record? In my post today there was a leaflet from the local LDs asking for my vote in last week’s MEP election.

  • Hatuey

    An open letter to battered wives…

    When Nicola Sturgeon declared that the only route to independence was through a Section 30, we can assume that she meant a Section 30 granted out of some sense of decency or moral responsibility exhibited by a future UK Government.

    The UK is basically an abusive relationship. When Tory leadership candidates are competing on the basis of who will humiliate the democratically elected representatives of Scotland the most, we are right into battered wife territory.

    I have had the misfortune in life to witness abusive relationships up close. There’s nothing unusual about them where I was brought up.

    Let me try and be constructive about this.

    The idea that you might approach a tyrant or wife beater with a reasonable proposition or complaint and expect a cool-headed, honest, or constructive response is so delusional that it is tragic. Based on experience, even trying that would lead to another black eye or two. And that’s where Scotland is right now — “walked into the door again…”

    The people I know who got out of those sort of relationships were the ones that were brave, not diplomatic. They seemed to just wake up one day and decide enough was enough, with something resembling a “fuck you, I’m off, do what you want…” It’s glorious to see.

    And that’s the moral of this little story. You really don’t need to put up with abuse. If you are brave and willing to resist, come what may, you can be free. If not for yourself, I urge, think of the kids and get out.

    Those that stay age quickly and become sort of institutionalised. Hope and life is drained from their faces like life’s blood. You see them in supermarkets and places shuffling along, invariably poor, badly dressed, and tired looking. I have nothing but the sincerest sympathy.

    I don’t doubt for a second that Nicola Sturgeon wants to get Scotland out of this abusive UK relationship. I know she does. I met her once and I truly believe she has fire and determination in her. But I am telling you, this approach isn’t going to work.

    We need to stand up to these people. It isn’t an easy decision, I know that, but, even with their constant propaganda, we have half the country on-side. More will surely follow. It’s time to just leave.

    • Loony

      What exactly is your problem?

      Aside from a few lunatics masquerading as serious politicians the outside of Scotland substantially no-one cares one way or another whether Scotland is independent or whether Scotland is a colony or whether Scots people are the wealthiest people on earth or whether they are all sitting in the dark contemplating the joys of cannibalism.

      Whatever it is you want to leave then go ahead and leave. No-one cares.

      • Ian

        I don’t think anybody cares in this slightest that you don’t care about Scotland. However, it is typical that in your supposed indifference to the country, you habitually lecture everybody about where it is going wrong and all the usual misleading posturing you do on the subject. Apparently you care enough to malign it with the flimsiest knowledge of the place or the people. What an example you are to the knee-jerk internet rent-an-opinion mob.

        • Loony

          Not really mate.

          Why not compare and contrast Scotland with Catalonia. Catalonia will never be independent because Spain will not allow itself to be dismembered. A few years ago the Head of Spanish Army was placed under house arrest after claiming that he was obligated to uphold the constitution and that this obligation may leave him no alternative than to send troops to Catalonia. More recently the Guardia Civil were deployed in Catalonia to re-enforce the Mossos d’esquadra so as to ensure that the law was upheld.

          No-one in England is going to lift a finger to prevent Scotland doing whatever it wants to do. There is zero possibility of even a suggestion that the army be deployed to prevent Scotland becoming independent. You can hold votes, you can rig ballots, you can tell lies, you can do whatever you want and no-one cares.

          I have never maligned Scotland – I don’t care enough about Scotland to have any opinion on it whatsoever. It is the case that I have pointed out lies told by Scottish people – but that is because I care for the truth.

      • Wikikettle

        Loony. I am glad you are happy for Scotland to leave the Union. I however am not happy that Trident leave Faslane and be moored on the Thames. Perhaps one off the many offshore tax havens far away !?

        • Loony

          I don’t care what you do.

          Surely if Scotland is independent then it can choose what kind of defense industry that it wants. If these are English missiles and you don’t want them then you can instruct the English to take them away. If they are not English missiles then you can keep them, sell them or dismantle them. That must be the very definition of independence.

          If you want to be independent then you need to establish and agree the provenance of these missiles. Once you have done that then your options will be clear. Why on earth should anyone that isn’t Scottish undertake this work on your behalf.

          A nation born of idleness does not strike me as likely to be successful.

          • Hatuey

            Loony, if it was my goal to appeal to you, I’d simply throw in some garbled nonsense about fiat currencies and shape-shifting lizards and I could count on you singing my praises.

    • Wikikettle

      Hatuey. Although very late in life I decided to leave in more ways than one. Abusive relations, so called friends and a world going mad. As I have mentioned before I am working towards sailing to Scotland after doing a circumnavigation of Ireland. I was greatly influenced by Andrew Phelan’s book Ireland from the Sea. A better history I have never read. I hope to follow in his wake and if you have any recommendations of a similar book on Scotland.

      • Hatuey

        Congratulations, wiki, and well done. Ireland is a much happier subject than Scotland and provides a good example of the sort of happy ending that awaits those who stand up to tyranny.

        Of course, Ireland has her scars but I’m sure very few there (outside of the North) would argue that they’d have been better off staying with the thug that gave her those scars.

        I don’t believe the book you are looking for exists and I’m sorry about that.

    • giyane

      Hatuey

      What about battered husbands?
      We feel a little bit battered in England by a progressive Labour leader from Scotland who attacked Iraq followed by his successor who refused to reform the banks.

      You have a point but imho you shouldn’t frame it in judgemental metaphor.

      • Hatuey

        My judgement is objective. Scotland is being treated disgracefully. Everything i say about Scotland is underpinned by the same reasoning and understanding that I’d rely on if I was talking about Palestine or anywhere else.

  • Garth Carthy

    There’s an excellent article in the Independent today – “The final punishment of Julian Assange reminds journalists their job is to uncover what the state keeps hidden” writes Robert Fisk.
    He writes about the nefarious activities of US and UK governments and how so many mainstream journalists are failing to investigate and hold to account Governments for the numerous injustices, mass killings and torture of innocents.
    This torture includes the inhumane treatment of whistle blowers like Assange, Manning and Snowden.

    I rarely see any real criticism of the disgusting lack of moral fibre of so much of mainstream journalism except on the ‘Media Lens’ site.

    • Wikikettle

      Garth, the state has the sexual and financial dirt on anyone that is in a position of influence. The more dirt you have the higher the office you will occupy.

      • Wikikettle

        Robert Fisk is one of the most bravest and respected Journalists of our time. He lost his job because he wrote an article about the shooting down of an Iranian airliner by the US Navy.

        • lysias

          Once, when I was working in the Pentagon, my boss, one of the chief civilian lawyers in the Defense Department, told me that Captain Rogers, the commander of the Vincennes, the ship that shot down the Iranian Airbus, had a reputation as trigger-happy in the Navy. Nevertheless, the political masters chose to give Rogers and his weapons officer medals for the shootdown. And it was in connection with that shootdown that G.H.W. Bush, then Vice President, said he would never criticize the U.S.

          Because of my own experience as a radio intercept operator for the U.S. Air Force in Berlin, it was clear to me that the radio operators on the Vincennes should have immediately realized that the Airbus was a civil transport.

          The commander of the USS Sides, which was sailing near the Vincennes on the fatal day, wrote a devastating article on the shootdown in the Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute.

        • Kempe

          Almost true. Just after the Murdoch take-over of the Times he had an article about Flight 655 “spiked” so he resigned and moved to the Independent.

          At least the US has had enough decency to express regret over that particular incident and paid $63 million in compensation. Contrast that with a similar event more recently and another super-power which as done nothing but lie, and lie unconvincingly, to try and get itself off the hook.

      • Salford Lad

        Begs the question ,what kind of dirt they had on Teresa May. Some rumours about her Father the Vicar and his time at a training seminary. All documents removed from files regarding this issue.

        • Loony

          Mrs/. May’s father worked with Dr. John Bodkin Adams, and with some of his patients and relatives of patients that died.

          Bodkin Adams was a convicted fraudster and rumored serial killer. It is suggested that he was never fully investigated for killing people as there was concern that any such allegations would damage the reputation of the then nascent NHS.

  • Wikikettle

    Australia, Australian Government, I think you should consider adding, on your flag, in a spare corner, the stars and stripes. A bit larger than the union one. Your citizen languishes while your troops are shoulder to shoulder in the coalition of the willing…..

  • remember kronstadt

    Unqualified driver derails the runaway train, limps away in tears and is mocked whilst the passengers, who have been rocking the carriages that caused the crash, start a fight to take the wheel. Step up the hero… ‘My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters.’ BJ

    • Bayard

      RK, I hate to spoil your simile, but trains don’t have steering wheels, for obvious reasons. I’m not sure what the railway equivalent is, nowadays. In the days of steam it was the regulator.

  • Sharp Ears

    This is sad news that Walter Wolfgang has died. He was well known for being evicted from a Labour conference in 2005 when he criticized Straw’s speech supporting BLiar’s war on Iraq.

    https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2019/05/30/rip-walter-wolfgang-the-labour-veteran-who-called-tony-blair-the-worst-leader-the-labour-party-has-ever-had/?

    He spoke out as he found. He was also a founding member of CND. Many tributes have been paid. RIP dear old Walter. He was 95 just short of his birthday next month.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Wolfgang

    • BrianFujisan

      A wee Hero
      rest in Peace Walter

      I wonder if his t.v survived Hilary Ben’s – Please Bomb Syria speech, Based on Lies of course – Cheered on by the Opposition.

      • Wikikettle

        Yes, Hilary Ben’s speech was lauded by the media, the Tory’s and by Blairite Labour MP’s. He milked all the false talking points and
        thought that would be his stab in the back of Jeremy which would land him the leadership. Oh how his father would have been shamed.

        • Ken Kenn

          When you are a Labour MP and you elicit applause from Tories you really have done something terribly wrong.

          At least in the last years of Blair’s government he just got the Tories to vote for his policies.

          They were in agreement both him and the Tories.

          No applause – just votes.

          By the way Charles:

          The definition of paranoia is the delusion that some people are after you.

          When these people are proven to be really after you – you are no longer deluded.

          Your original deluded thoughts are confirmed as fact.

          I would bet a pound to a penny that Assanges health started ‘ suffering ‘ after a change of Ecuador’s government.

          Or am I being paranoid?

          • Sharp Ears

            An appeal from Robert Fisk to journalists to do their job. I fear it may fall on barren land.

            The final punishment of Julian Assange reminds journalists their job is to uncover what the state keeps hidden
            If we do our job, we will expose the same vile mendacity of our masters that has led to the clamour of hatred towards Assange, Manning and Snowden
            May 30, 2019
            http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51687.htm

          • Sharp Ears

            John Pilger’s tweets:

            @johnpilger 9 hours ago
            I was in court today for Julian #Assange’s latest extradition hearing; but Julian himself was absent. He was in the Belmarsh prison hospital. His supporters at the court should now be joined by journalists across the world. My own union, the #NUJ, must be at the hearing in June.
            __
            @johnpilger May 27
            The Vichy journalists of the MSM have finally taken fright that the monstrous US charges against Julian #Assange are now a threat to them. Yet the cowards at the NYT, the Guardian etc continue to smear this heroic man who shamed them by refusing to join their gatekeepers’ club.’
            https://twitter.com/johnpilger

            There’s a decent man and a true journalist.

      • Andyoldlabour

        BrianFujisan

        The first I heard of Hilary Benn, I was thankful that another Benn was in politics.
        However, it was all downhill after that, he is a disgusting individual.
        I was always convinced that Tony Blair set out to destroy the Labour party, he was after all a fan of Margaret Thatcher.

  • Willie

    Is there a strategy to flood what is a very good blog with unionist loon ball spoilers.

    Astro turfing by the state is not I’m afraid unknown. In fact 5hey hav3 considerable resources dedicated to it.

    Keep up the comment and analysis Mr Murray.

    • Ken Kenn

      There is a bit of hope out there for Scotland.

      The Tories about two years ago went searching for their forgotten relatives in the North of Ireland
      for nostalgic reasons via Ancestry.com

      And guess what?

      They have revived the name The Conservative and Ulster Unionist Party and they all lived happily ever after.

      Of course as in any family re-united there are always the eccentrics.

      Some may even appear on here waving the flag of The Union.

      It cost 1.5 billion quid to the newly found relatives but hey – what’s a few quid between relatives?

  • Sharp Ears

    I have just heard Majid Nawaz, late of Quilliam infamy (they tried to shut Craig down), say on LBC that ‘the Labour Party is ‘institutionally anti-semitic’. Preceding this statement, a conversation had taken place about John Willsman, who is on the Labour executive committee, who said that there are Labour party members working indirectly for the Israeli Embassy.

    Labour antisemitism: Senior party official blames allegations on Israeli embassy
    MPs have demanded the expulsion of Pete Willsman from the party’s ruling National Executive Committee
    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-antisemitism-pete-willsman-israel-embassy-corbyn-nec-ruth-smeeth-a8937856.html

    There is a obvious determination by this lobby to cut the legs off Jeremy Corbyn. Sky News are all over this. The BBC not yet! Sky has even resorted to getting Miliband D on line to add some fuel to the bonfire being lit under Jeremy who will never be forgiven for his support of the Palestinians.

    Note the Independent headline. ‘Labour antisemitism’ Proven. No argument.

    • Sharp Ears

      Willsman has been suspended now.

      Lobby 1 Corbyn 0

      When he is going to purge this crowd? ‘A member of Labour’s ruling body, the NEC, has been suspended over remarks he reportedly made about the party’s anti-Semitism row.

      LBC radio reported that Peter Willsman was recorded saying the Israeli embassy was “almost certainly” behind the row. Various Labour MPs, including deputy leader Tom Watson, and the Board of Deputies of British Jews have condemned the remarks.’

      A reminder that Watson is a member of Trades Union Friends of Israel. He is poisonous and displays no loyalty to Jeremy Corbyn. There are over 40 members of the NEC. Unwieldy.
      https://labour.org.uk/about/how-we-work/national-executive-committee/whos-on-the-nec/

      • Sharp Ears

        The BBC News Channel have just had Mike Catz from Jewish Labour to comment. He was duly critical of Corbyn needless to say.
        https://twitter.com/mikekatz?lang=en

        They should decide to whom they give support.

        Jewish Labour Movement
        @JewishLabour
        Jewish community in the Labour Party. Labour Movement in the Jewish community. Est 1903, affiliate of @UKLabour from 1920, supporters of @HavodaParty in Israel.

  • Tom

    The media’s hysterical reaction to Peter Willsman’s perfectly innocuous comments rather goes to underline the truth of his points. Wouldn’t a real media be investigating his claims rather than rejecting them out of hand too?

    • N_

      Indeed. And Tuvia Tenenbom says he was “unaware” that his “sound man” was recording Peter Willsman in the Oxford hotel restaurant. Either Margaret Hodge isn’t the only person who wires up for sound before she seeks to get quotes from leading Labour figures that are useful to the Zionazis, or else the audio was obtained afterwards, perhaps by Unit 8200 – from the hotel system, from the hotel’s security, or from GCHQ.

      According to Zionazis it’s an “antisemitic trope” to say the Israeli embassy interferes with the Labour party. They have no shame whatsoever. They’re doing it right now, in this very story.

      Name of sound man? I wonder why Tenebom needed one?

      Name of hotel? It’s not going to do their publicity much good, even if the story that a patron was secretly recorded by another patron is kept to and doesn’t get replaced by the notion that they spy on their guests or allow security agencies to.

      Willsman may at this point be realising that the actual state of affairs is much worse than he thought.

    • Ian

      The media have investigated and fingered the israeli embassy as interfering in UK politics. The four part documentary The Lobby demonstrates exactly what they do. Why is anybody surprised about it?

      • michael norton

        I’d still like to know what was Pritti Patel doing in
        The Golan
        when she was on family hollidays?

    • michael norton

      Fully agree Tom,
      if it is true, it can not be counted as anti semitic
      but could be counted as anti democratic.

  • John Griffin

    Well written and should be required for all thinking ChangeUK is a real change.

  • Sharp Ears

    The Guardian expose shocking greed in the House of Lords. It’s little different to payola. The system is wide open to abuse and reveals a lack of morals in their ranks. There are 800 of them now. It’s incredible.

    Revealed: one in five peers advise private business while serving in parliament
    Analysis finds 169 peers working as advisers and 15 paid by foreign governments
    31st May 2019

    ‘Transparency International UK’s policy director, Duncan Hames, said peers’ work for outside parties created a risk of conflict of interest.

    “It is particularly alarming that there are peers sitting in parliament who are working for foreign governments, and even more so considering the human rights records of these regimes,” he said. “Allowing this sort of outside work to continue only furthers the erosion of public confidence in the integrity of our parliament.”

    Following the Guardian’s report on Thursday that one in three peers rarely contributed for a full year, the Electoral Reform Society called for urgent reform and warned its own research indicated only 4% of people felt represented by Westminster.’
    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/31/revealed-one-in-five-peers-advise-private-business-while-serving-in-parliament

    Lord Richards, formerly Chief of the Defence Staff, is on the take from Bahrain! Nice.

    Owen Jones has written on some of the abuses going on there.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/31/house-of-lords-reform-scrapping-peer-claimed-allowances

    • Bayard

      “The Guardian expose shocking greed in the House of Lords. It’s little different to payola. The system is wide open to abuse and reveals a lack of morals in their ranks.”

      SE, what do you expect from something set up by Tony Blair?

      • michael norton

        The Guardian exposes a Remainer M.P. at odds with his Leave majority Constituents
        Conservative M.P. Phillip Lee loses vote of no confidence
        https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/01/remain-conservative-mp-phillip-lee-loses-vote-of-no-confidence-local-association
        Dr.Phillip Lee, M.P. for Bracknell in Berkshire, said he recognised that a majority of his Conservative association’s members opposed his view on Brexit, but argued he was elected to represent the best interests of everyone in his constituency.

        Lee supported remain in the EU referendum and was the first government minister to resign over Brexit.

        Nobody has ever wanted this man, his views on most subjects are not what people in Bracknell think, he has chosen to ride the wrong horse.

        It must be plain as the noses on their faces that the country is more Leave and more extreme Leave now
        because of the undemocratic way the ghastly M.P.’s have treated the result of our Referendum

  • N_

    Relevant to kingdom politics: from the Sun:

    Donald Trump: “Asked if he would like all the candidates to make the same pledge on military spending, he added: “I think it’s a good thing.

    “I think it’s great for the UK, and it would be part of trade.

    “We make the greatest military equipment in the world.

    “The UK should be able to defend themselves. It’s a great and very special place.” The President made reference to golf courses he owns on this side of the Atlantic.

    He said: “As you know, OK, so, I own Turnberry, it’s a great place, one of the most beautiful.

    Trump is basically ga-ga. Who’s really in control?

  • michael norton

    Sam Gyimah has become the thirteenth candidate to join the race for the Conservative Party leadership.

    The former universities minister is the first contender trying to succeed Theresa May by backing a referendum on any Brexit deal.

    This is getting stupid, thirteen runners and riders, they are mostly no hope people, what a farce.

    • Sharp Ears

      This morning Ms Soubry is angry with Chuka.

      Change UK: Chuka Umunna’s exit a ‘serious mistake’, says Anna Soubry
      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48572020

      There were just five MPs remaining in the Change UK party! Anna Soubry, Chris Leslie, Joan Ryan, Mike Gapes and Ann Coffey
      The party was given approval by the Electoral Commission in April. Their website looks dead. https://voteforchange.uk/

      One good thing is that Ryan and Gapes, fervent supporters of Zionist Israel, are no longer in the Labour Party so job done.

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