The reason that Mark Field attacked the lady who had just passed by him was that she wore a sash clearly identifying her as a climate change protestor. She had entered with the other guests, already wearing her sash, and making no effort at concealment. Field knew exactly that she was a climate change protestor when he attacked her: it is why he attacked her. Had she just passed by him without that sash, he would not have attacked her.
There is zero history in the UK of personal violence or terrorist attack by climate change protestors and nobody could claim they had a reasonable fear that a climate change protestor was carrying a weapon – something which has simply never happened. I could equally rationally grab Mark Field by the throat any time I saw him, and claim he might have been carrying a concealed weapon because he is a Tory MP. His excuse is a complete and utter nonsense, a post hoc effort at justification.
He only had a genuine fear of her carrying a weapon if he is suffering from a serious psychological derangement, and one dangerous to the public.
Unlike Mark Field, I happen to have led a life involving real danger, and had guns pointed at my head in both Uzbekistan and Liberia, whilst in the service of the UK. But in my sixty years I have never once raised my hand in anger to a woman. Field’s unprovoked attack was cowardly and ungentlemanly in the extreme (and I really do not care if you find my attitude outdated or not).
It is worth observing that there was not a gentleman at this gathering of Britain’s bankers and upper classes. Nobody stood up to try to assist the peaceful woman who had been grabbed by the neck. Sickeningly, they applauded Field on his return. I find the extraordinary tirade of Tory defence on twitter this morning says a great deal about the kind of party it has become.
One point that appears to have been missed in media comment, is that it seems to me extremely likely that the woman had an invitation or ticket for the event. She was dressed in evening wear as the other guests, but was not attempting to infiltrate or gatecrash or she would not have worn the sash. The most probable reason for someone to follow the dress code but identify themselves with a protest sash is that they were a legitimate guest wishing to make a point.
It is essential to our society that Mark Field is immediately arrested and charged with assault. If Tories are allowed simply to assault people lest they make a speech that Tories disagree with, society has turned a corner to somewhere very dark indeed.
Andrew Murrison, another FCO minister of state, has been despatched to Iran by Hunt.
UK minister sent to Iran to ‘raise concerns about conduct’
https://news.sky.com/story/uk-minister-sent-to-iran-to-raise-concerns-about-conduct-11746797
What chutzpah in that headline.
Murrison is an ex RN surgeon commander and is in the RN reserve. As a doctor, he should be healing not harming and definitely should not be involved in the UK’s murky dealings abroad. He is the MP for SW Wilts.
‘On 9 May 2019, he was appointed Minister of State at the Department for International Development and Minister for the Middle East at the Foreign Office.’
He has done the rounds and has even been involved in the preliminaries for the demolition of OUR NHS under Lansley who introduced the Health and Social Care Act in 2012.
‘Appointments during the 2010 Parliament
After re-election to Parliament – appointed as PPS to the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley owing to his experience as a physician.
November 2011 – appointed as the Prime Minister’s special representative for First World War centenary commemorations.
September 2012 – as part of the Prime Minister’s first major cabinet reshuffle, appointed as Minister for International Security Strategy in the Ministry of Defence.
July 2014 – appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Northern Ireland Office.
January 2016 – appointed Prime Ministerial Trade Envoy to Tunisia and Morocco.
He must have served under Admiral Nicholas Streynsham Hunt, the late father of one of the current candidates for PM. LOL.
Sadly any criticism just intensifies the belief of Field and his middle England tory defenders that they are the most oppressed, persecuted people on the planet… speeding cameras, language police, now this!!!
It could be confusing to refer to the Boris violence tape, because of this Boris violence tape from 1990.
An account of this sordid incident.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/22/scotland-yard-press-operation-faces-questions-over-boris-johnson-row
There seems to have been a police cover up in their refusal to reply.
How much lower can this country go?
I have now watched the Field video a couple of times. Viewed first time through, it struck me that firstly, the woman was clearly a deliberate gatecrasher and had some sort of agenda, to rush to the front and do some sort of demo when she got there. She had that look on her face, I thought, that you have when you are carrying out a dare.
Secondly, I thought Field initially sensed rather than saw, that someone was running up behind the chairs towards the front, he had his back to the aisle, so pushed back his chair and turned round to grab the intruder, only a pillar was in the way which obstructed his grabbing and he took a few seconds to get a grip, then he hustled her to the back if the hall where steward led her away.
Yes he used too much force but on the other hand they were confined in a tight space so no room for bouncers to intervene. While not defending him, he was too rough, I can see sort of how it happened.
As a point of interest, what would anyone else have done in the same situation?
They either broke in or were let in through the back door. It’s a stunt. Manufactured news, with Culture War click-bait included.
Still waiting for the Graun to release the audio of their “completely accidental observer”
I abhor all kinds of violence. This is not a defence of Boris/Field – but can you see a narrative being built? Right here, on this blog also.
Really!
all the other people in the room refrained from attacking her, so probably that’s your best indication right there what anyone else would have done.
The Tory audience at the hustings ( stupid word ) in Birmingham just now did not like Iain Dale’s first questioning of Johnson about the fracas. A private matter. Of course.
They seemed to love Jezza Hunt. The question of his connection when DCMS Secretary with Murdoch in 2012 (giving him Sky BSB) was swiftly glossed over. He said he ‘cleared his name’.
There were no questions either about Hunt purchasing six buy to let flats in a Southampton Marina development via a company using his wife’s name. Hunt breached several codes and saved + £90,000 in stamp duty. He bought them off a Tory donor. Not stupid. These types are always sorry.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/13/jeremy-hunt-sorry-for-luxury-flat-purchase-errors
I don’t like Boris Johnson, but basically, he had a Barney with his girlfriend. There are plenty of reasons to vote against him, not the least of which being that he’s a halfwit. This isn’t one of them. Does it never occur to lefties that the “by any means necessary” mentality is what turns people off them?
It tells you a lot about the character of a man who wants to be the next PM. Nothing to do with the feeble swipe at ‘lefties ‘.
I agree totally there was no place to hide a weapon in the dress she was wearing And most terrorists do not enter events disguised as guests but as waiters and staff. neither he or the guests were in any danger. This was just another symptom of the tory disease where they think they can do anything they want without punishment and that anyone not a part of their faction is fair game this behaviour is more commonly associated with street gangs and hooligans many of whom are serving time in prison for their criminal acts
Tories whinge like m*****f*****s. Any time they experience adversity or opposition that they can’t crush, they whinge whinge whinge. Many of them say stupid ridiculous things like it’s always the middle classes who get squeezed the most. They are so thick it is almost unbelievable. Mark Field was the aggressor, he was probably tanked up – if not on powder, then probably on ethanol and certainly on the adrenaline flowing in his filthy bourgeois veins from being so happy with himself for being at such a gathering – and he enjoyed defending the company’s evening by using violence against an obviously unarmed woman who wanted to disrupt it for a few seconds, causing her humiliation and pain. No he didn’t think she had a knife hidden in her clothing, or a radio control switch for an anti-personnel mine that might have blown those Tory arses to kingdom come, giving them a taste of Iraq or Syria. The SAS guys didn’t think the same about those IRA opponents they shot dead in Gibraltar either. Field probably believes he’s an expert neckgrabber. Tories have no shame. It’s always somebody else’s fault, the fault of those who don’t know how the world should be. His supporters are blaming lefties, Guardian readers, the BBC, and invoking the rights of private property and “trespass” and so on. It’s as if they themselves are requesting the punch in the throat that they so richly deserve.
I encountered a Tory dimwit online a few hours ago who when the topic of conversation moved to Boris Johnson could only say
1. His enemies are out to get him
(Oh poor ickle him! – he’s in a contest where he can’t just kill the other side right away, ban criticisms of himself, and punch the air in triumph without having had to meet any opposition. That’s the position that almost EVERY person is in who engages in a contest – but usually most of those who want one side to win don’t whinge about it. That’s except if they’re Tories.)
2, “I would suggest it is Johnson”.
The latter seems to be a thicko Tory way of saying “I want Johnson to win” and “I think he will win”, with an indication that the utterer can’t distinguish between what they want and how things are, which is a form of psychosis. Most who use the conditional mood for snobbish effect have never been asked “You say that WOULD happen, but what’s the condition clause?” That’s until I come along. Even if you didn’t know much about grammar, you’d be able to work out the meaning of that question if you weren’t intellectually paralysed for life by snobbery. Such usage is one of the most widespread markers of caste contempt in Britain. Don’t bother looking for any discussion of it in academic literature or on the internet.
@ N_ June 22, 2019 at 19:33
‘..The SAS guys didn’t think the same about those IRA opponents they shot dead in Gibraltar either…’
I attended the inquest in Gibraltar, and that point came out very clearly.
I got harassed by Special Branch for my presence.
Almost all posts under the embedded Guardian youtube video in this article are in support of Mark Field’s ugly assault of this woman. I tried to make a post in defense of the woman under the video and–surprise!–Guardian’s moderators quickly disappeared my comment: this is how they try to influence public opinion, i.e. by censoring posts critical of Mark Field’s assault; but allowing posts cheering on his attacking this woman to be shown. Like Mr Murray pointed out, the Guardian’s editor Paul Johnson works closely with the UK’s D-Notice censorship committee. I hate the Guardian media, truly horrible people. Worse than WaPo, and that is scraping the bottom of the septic tank.
Yes, and yet there are still so many idiots who think the Guardian is a left wing newspaper! LOL!
And idiots who apparently donate some of their hard-earned to the rag! LOL!
Reader, I was that idiot (in 2015). 🙂
Is Hunt back to advocating remain again? Johnson will adopt whatever position best serves his own personal interests at any given moment, no other consideration ever comes into it.
Mary Pau!
June 22, 2019 at 18:03
“As a point of interest, what would anyone else have done in the same situation?”
Well Mary, most normal people would not have physically attacked that lady and the men seated nearby, if they were real men, would have restrained Mr Field from assaulting her.
The neighbour who called police after hearing an altercation between Boris Johnson and his girlfriend Carrie Symonds has gone public.
Tom Penn issued a statement after coming under fire from some Tory figures for releasing the recording. Mr Penn, 29, said he heard the argument and only called police after knocking three times on Ms Symonds door and not getting a response. The neighbour said he had since faced “bizarre and fictitious allegations” since the scandal broke. In a statement released tonight Mr Penn said: “In the early hours of Friday morning, I answered a phone call from a takeaway food delivery driver. At the same time, I heard what sounded like shouting coming from the street.
One wonders if he has connections with the Guardian.
That line about the delivery driver (identified in other sources as working for Deliveroo) sounds “interesting”. It has the smack of a dollop of “innocence” that the account is hung on, an “explainer” as to why he was on the landing at that time of night, but also an element which may not be so “innocent” at all. Special agencies can infiltrate or run companies like that, can work with their security, or can have their facilities for their own use when they want. We should have no doubt that Deliveroo will work with MI5 because if they didn’t then MI5 wouldn’t know as much as they’d feel comfortable with about who else the company might be working with. Questions such as was the landing swept for wires arise. I continue to believe that a large part of the senior echelon of MI6 does not want Boris Johnson as prime minister, and perhaps we are finding out the kind of thing that can happen when other powerful forces try to walk over them.
I quite like the idea that the senior echelons of MI6 do not want Boris Johnson to become PM and might stir themselves to prevent it, though it is odd that they were not similarly bestirred to stop him being Foreign Secretary, but sadly that far fetched conspiracy theory falters on the suggestion that they might not be authoritarian dinosaurs and does not remove the alternative risk of Hunt becoming PM. In either case it would be interesting to imagine MI6 wanted to protect this country from US interests manipulating the election process but again I am not that hopeful.
Indeed “real men” would have swooped in to protect this helpless female.
anybody that wasn’t a gutless coward would have intervened to help this assault victim, yes. the much larger drunk clearly had the advantage in this “confrontation” he sought, no doubt he would have cowered on the floor if he thought she actually had a weapon as he claimed. he looks like just the kind of british poodle the u.s. likes though, kicking down and kissing up.
most would, yes. unfortunately it was a room full of tories.
Yes. Try that sort of stunt in Russia and you will get some lumps – even before the police arrive to arrest you.
https://dailycaller.com/2016/02/04/refugees-go-clubbing-in-russia-harass-girls-wake-up-in-hospital-the-next-morning/
Your premise is wrong. Both candidates have expressed support for Britain leaving the EU and so has the party they want to lead. One of them is even the current foreign secretary. And your question is misguided because an endorsement by Craig is not going to influence members of the Tory party in how they vote in their party’s leadership election, always assuming that a members’ vote takes place.
That said, every decent person wants Boris Johnson to crash out of the running.
Speaking personally, I can’t help but view Tories as less human than most of the rest of us, which is exactly how Tories themselves view most of the rest of us.
Find it really difficult to assess which one is worse tbh.
Hunt claims he’ll get as better deal, in all likelihood he won’t and he isn’t so stupid to not know this. If you recall, a few weeks ago he stated leaving with no deal would be quote “suicidal”. This went down v.badly with the pro-Brexit Tory membership so he quickly rowed back and said he WOULD leave with no deal (honesty?). Many Remainers are backing Hunt because they think he’ll betray the membership if elected and ‘do a deal’ with Labour over the customs union and possibly single market too. The ERG who were instrumental in bringing May down, will likely bring any Hunt govt down if he attempts that, as they wouldn’t let May do it. And I can see the ERG’s point that if you negate the few advantages of Brexit, what is the point of Brexit-ing at all?
A Brexit compromise of leaving the political institutions and the single market is a sensible compromise that stops Britain joining the Euro, restores control of borders and state aid, keeps Scotland in the Union and maintains a soft border in Ireland.
where are the snows of yesteryear when one nation tutters ruled the discourse. if things weren’t bad enough that vulgar little man, new furniture naturally, is pushing on the lawn and someone needs to do something. end of days, end of days. and those candidates, still here.
Apologies if someone has already commented on this, but the Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has pointed out that both Johnson and Hunt voted in support of May’s existing withdrawal agreement. What will have changed once one of them has backstabbed their way into the PM position? The EU must be struggling to keep things on an even keel, dealing with these muppets… No, you can’t have the sweeties if you don’t pay for them!
The difference?
Johnson claims he’ll leave on or by 31st Oct on no deal and assemble a Praetorian Guard cabinet : hard pipe hittin’ Brexiters, who’ll ensure he can do exactly that.
As for Hunt, he wants to get in the Brexit vehicle that’s stuck in the ditch precisely where May left it. His backers include Amber Rudd and others associated with deep opposition to a no deal Brexit.
Jeremy Hunt is being back by his intimate Amber Rudd, the father of Amber Rudd used to be a writer for the Guardian,
just saying.
I don’t know what Hunt will do precisely. But going by everything he’s said about no-deal in the past i.e., he thinks it completely disastrous, well, I’m more than a little dubious about his sudden conversion to the idea. Anyone backed by the people he’s backed by eg. Rudd et al, is highly unlikely to no-deal.
Although, quite how he’ll get the EU’s now disbanded negotiating team to open up a negotiation they say is done ,finalised? I think it far more likely he intends to do some deal with Labour over the SM or CU (or both) but is simply is keeping that plan to himself. There could be huge fight in that party.
Hence, why it’s probably better for Labour to sit on the fence until a victor emerges from that fight.
Brother is pretty awful too. So an all round rotten family it seems michael !
Yes they did both vote in favour of it but it lost. There then came the deal with Labour, which wasn’t promoted as a deal but which nonetheless still was a deal and could have won – but Theresa May got removed from office in a coup d’etat before she could bring it to Parliament for a vote.
In the 1970s Aldo Moro didn’t manage to bring his “historic compromise” to the Italian national assembly for a vote either.
“coup d’etat”
That’s when a military group takes over the government by force. Theresa May actually removed herself; she volunteered to leave if she didn’t get her way.
Have you not heard of a bloodless coup?
I wouldn’t believe the interpretations pushed in the papers if I were you. She had come to an understanding with Labour. She had agreed that Britain would in effect stay in both the customs union and the single market, and a government bill to that effect may well have passed. Jeremy Corbyn used Tory opposition to her leadership as the reason why he wouldn’t “sign the deal” openly. In other words, since they were going to oust her anyway, there was no point. Had they not ousted her, it would have gone through.
“Removed herself” – LOL!
It’s as if you don’t see the Tory far right grouped around figures such as Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson as an actor.
There was never a deal in the offing with Labour, as May didn’t have the backing of her MPs to agree even a permanent customs union – the minimal outcome Labour would accept. The best May could commit to is a temporary customs arrangement until the end of the transition(or implementation) period, but that was already written into the WA.
Basically May never moved on her three ‘red lines’, those which she first set out in that Lancaster house speech way back in January 2017: No to the single market; no to membership of the or any customs union and no jurisdiction in the UK for the European Court of Justice (the EU’s court).
Airey Neave never managed to become head of MI5 either, a role that is alleged in some quarters Thatcher had lined up for him and one that Neave saw as an opportunity to clean up the security services.
Watched a TV interview recently with the very good Chris Mullin – Politician and author of the novel A Very British Coup (1982). He said he thought domestic intelligence service MI5 were now behaving properly, that the rogue elements of the type in his ’80s era novel were gone, and further that oversight (ISC, IPCO) was functioning properly. Although he did say he still had some concerns about MI6.
SHE WAS PASSING BY.. YOU DECIDED TO ATTACK AND STOP HER…
I’m surprised anyone believes the official stories behind either the Field incident or the Johnson altercation. The “lapse of security” in the Field case was rather convenient, wasn’t it, and the discussion afterwards totally out of proportion to what actually happened (what are they hiding?). Meanwhile the timing of the alleged Johnson row couldn’t have been better for his opponents, coming as it did almost as soon as MPs had narrowed the field to two but before the members’ hustings. In both cases I really can’t look beyond involvement by the authorities.
oh, you mean there was a conspiracy to make him look like a fat, aging bully with a booze problem? damn, how could he have escaped this foul plot? if only he could have refrained from attacking her, but hindsight is 20/20, right?
The first few seconds tell you Bully Field was drunk…That he had to steady himself using the Pillar.
That’s one of the things Gavin Sealey said here: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/06/that-mark-field-feared-a-terrorist-attack-is-clearly-a-lie-or-he-is-dangerously-insane/comment-page-3/#comment-876020. “He then gets up and […] seems to lose his balance and has to lean on the pillar.” That didn’t seem right to me. I suppose I’ll have to look at the damn video again tomorrow … aaaaarrrgghhh! 🙂
No: It’s not what Gavin was saying.. I’m saying Field was Drunk.. Dangerous Assault. .. Deliberate Clamping into the neck millimeters away from pressure points..and the Look in his eyes.. Bad Bad Stuff
BrianFujisan
That is exactly what I saw Brian. The guy was clearly enraged. The woman was passing by him when he assaulted her. He pushed her against the pillar with his left hand around the front of her throat, then spun her around with the same left hand around the back of her neck, clearly causing a lot of discomfort to the woman.
I’ve watched the video another couple of times (groan…), and I still see no sign of Field being unsteady on his pins, or having to lean on the pillar for support.
Although he may have been drunk, I can see no evidence of it. I don’t think he has even that much of an excuse, which would be little enough.
(By the way, I referred unambiguously to only “one of the things” Gavin Sealey wrote, so I don’t know why you thought I was attributing all of his other opinions to you as well.)
Penn: “the recordings were of the noise within my own home.” If this is true, then the Daily Mail, which has published a 3D graphic of the house and the recording of the audio as if it were covering some kind of terrorist act, is most probably lying.
The Daily Heil bring us the information that Leigh “was raised in a £15 million New York home and her father was American [sic] composer Mitch Leigh who wrote the 1965 Broadway musical Man Of La Mancha, which included the huge hit The Impossible Dream”
They quote Sean Penn as saying “If I saw someone who I thought was in danger on the street I would start filming while seeking help.” He requires some advice from friends, I think, because this is not a sensible thing to say in these (or any other) circumstances.
The Heil also describe Eve Leigh as a “former palm-reader”, and they refer to “one interviewer” describing her as an “American Leftist Buddhist Jewish playwright.”
The address is in Brunswick Park, Camberwell.
According to the vile Wikipedia, Leigh graduated from Jesus College, Cambridge. How on earth a person can “graduate”, i.e. receive a degree, from an institution which doesn’t award degrees isn’t clear. The reference to her work as a palm reader goes to here (Feb 2019):
“Leigh used to be a palm reader, (and) her partner is a close-up magician”.
A what?
“How on earth a person can “graduate”, i.e. receive a degree, from an institution which doesn’t award degrees isn’t clear.”
That’s a comment worthy of Pedant’s Corner in the Eye. So what if it’s the university that awards the degree, and not the college?
The directors of the Atlantic Council. Enough of them, by the dozen. The names of Kissinger and Petraeus stand out.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/about/board-of-directors
From audio evidence against Johnson recorded in Camberwell to video evidence against him recorded elsewhere in London. What next? Will a veritable “Margaret Hodge” of recorded material be surfaced? Things are cracking apart!
I believe that Bannon helped with or largely wrote Johnson’s resignation speech. A US fingerprint was also identified in Jacob Rees-Mogg’s letter – “treats Northern Ireland differently than the rest of the UK” – suggesting he didn’t even exercise final approval.
Mark Field M(c)P…
Thanks for the link to ‘thearmenite.com’ They make this telling observation: “What’s curious, however, is the Atlantic Council’s evident lack of interest that for the past ten years, dozens of foreign-funded media outlets in Armenia coordinated attacks on the country’s administration with patently false information, often led by now-prime minister Nikol Pashinyan and his newspapers, some of which were closed due to numerous libel lawsuits.”
Which I take to mean that the interest of the Atlantic Council re fake news is that whatever constitutes fake news starts and ends with any Russian connection and any other lies are really nothing to be concerned about. If the Atlantic Council has any utility it needs to be concerned about fake news from whatever source, or its creditability is compromised.
You would not win high marks in any essay on political history.
Field was over the top but do not confuse a Greenpeace activist with a climate change protester.
When I was young and unfamiliar with the ways of the world, long before virtue signaling was a popularly known expression, I grew my hair long, bought the posters and paid my dues to save the dolphins and the whales. I stopped once it dawned on me that Greenpeace appeared only ever target non US interests. Their focus appeared to be economic under the cover of environmentalism.
As for the lady in question, why sympathise? She got what she wanted beyond her wildest dreams. A viral video clip and front page headlines.
complete nonsense. greenpeace has targeted and initiated lawsuits against all the major us polluters: exxon, koch, halliburton, pentagon et al. furthermore unlike some environmental groups they do not accept a dime from any corporations seeking to greenwash their reputations. if you’re looking for an organization to castigate for never targeting us interests then look no further than the britush conservative party.
What about the financing Greenpeace has received from Triodos Bank?
Bill, the Field woman protester, looked very smug indeed, she has no intention of asking for further “action” because she has set the train in motion, for other to run with it.
Look at what is happening in Germany with the open cast coal protesters, this will suit Donald Trump
who wishes to damage the economy of Germany.
what’s happening in germany that is relevant? and why wouldn’t prosecuting fields, as he richly deserves, continue to pay political dividends? the prosecutors will “run with it” as you put it.
Could a US versus Germany fight be playing out in Britain?
if it were, i fail to see why this incident would have anything to do with it.
i don’t know what she wanted, but i know i want fields prosecuted. what do you want?
The attack by Mark Field must be treated as a serious warning of what will soon follow. The Right’s thirty year disinformation campaign has at last been recognised for what it is – denial, to maximise personal gain, even by destroying the ecosystems upon which all life depends. Such behaviour is beyond irrational; it is obsessively myopic, blind to evidence, reason and consequences.
Deception having failed, a member of the Right proceeds impulsively to direct suppression by pre-emptive violence. Far from condemning this, his colleagues promote excuses, ie. rationalisations.
As awareness spreads of our predicament, such escalation from the Right must be anticipated. The Right must be denied control of the power of the state, for they cannot help themselves; they are compelled by their irrationality to use any means available to enforce their ecocidal, genocidal and ultimately suicidal agenda.
It was not really accurate of me to direct my accusation at “the Right”. There must be many on the Right with an adequate sense of proportion; those who advocate market competition and systems of investment, but view them in the appropriate perspective of their dependence upon natural systems that the human economy cannot hope to replicate.
It would be encouraging to find such people among the Blairite ‘centrists’ of the Labour party, but the ease with which that faction rationalise their support for neoconservative conquest for hydrocarbons implies that they too lack sufficient self-awareness.
With the caveat that Labour also has it’s share of wholly owned corporate place men, you were probably more accuarte in your first comment. For the simple reason that ‘moderate’ Tories, should they exist, rarely dissent in any meaningful way. If you know of any recent or memorable examples please let me know.
Around six months after Corbyn became leader,in Mar 2016 a list leaked out, it was created by a senior aide, it put the PLP’s MPs into categories : “core group” – those closest and most loyal to the leader, while 56 were in the “core plus” group – the leader’s outer circle. A total of 72 MPs were labeled “neutral but not hostile”, 49 were in slightly hostile in “core group negative” while 36 are outwardly “hostile”, the most negative rating.
It’s funny looking back now, because the “hostiles” list included Sadiq Khan, former interim shadow chancellor Chris Leslie, John Woodcock, Ian Austin, Michael Dugher, Tristram Hunt. With the exception of Khan….
A portion of society will always be indignant at any suggestion powerful bullies be called to account. They have surfaced again in the past 48 hours, absolutely fuming angry.
I agree, Mark Field is dangerously insane. The sooner Johnson beats his handler (Hunt) the better.
Bolton is visiting Israel today. He is putting out the requisite warnings to Iran as I write,
He is in Jerusalem with Not-a-Yahoo.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-israel-bolton-warns-iran-not-to-mistake-us-prudence-for-weakness/
The police denied they’d visited (“we have no record”) in the short space of time during which the incident carried the “restricted – don’t admit anything” tag, a label that was removed because the instigators were sussed enough to write down both the incident number (which doesn’t require much suss) and the attending police cars’ numbers (which does).
I hope I don’t get called a pedant for saying that’s not a coverup. A coverup is when that which is admitted or more or less accepted to have occurred stops being admitted, or at least gets sidelined and stops being accepted as a main possibility – it gets “covered up” – through a process by which “evidence”, especially verbal testimony from witnesses, is fabricated or altered or arm-twisted out of them to support a whoopsadaisyist “nothing to see here” or “we were only playing leapfrog” explanation. That is what happens in many cases. The one that comes to mind is the execution of Jean-Charles de Menezes on a London tube train. A witness saw and heard a large number of gunshots – more than 10 if I recall – and during her police interview she was told quite clearly “no you didn’t – sign here accordingly”.
The Johnson-Symonds story has been moving fast. One element which may suggest a cover-up was how a witness who is described if I recall correctly as a childminder, and therefore who is of much lower social status than Tom Penn and Eve Leigh, is quoted as saying that Symonds was screaming her head off and Johnson was speaking calmly. Such testimony gives a diametrically opposite impression to the testimony that shouting came with some loud smashes and then there was silence and a perception that a murder may have been committed. We only have to watch how Johnson gets all shouty when he’s interviewed alongside another politician with views different from his own, and then factor in his record as a womanising pillock who acts as if women he might fancy shagging are there for his own usage only, to realise it’s unlikely he’s the kind of bloke who can sit there and keep calm when a partner freaks out at him.
Yes, it’s the equivalent of tittle-tattle when Trump is outrageously talking of ‘obliterating’ Iran.
Trump also accidentally(?) confirmed Iranian claims that there was a Boeing P-8 Poseidon plane “with 38 crew” , along with the drone. that Iran could have “taken down”. He seemed to thank the Iranians for that . Bizarre times.
I’m sure Craig will get back to this really important stuff.
Well, SE I think Jonathan Cook is certainly correct about the media focussing on individuals and blowing up these issues while much more important issues are not being addressed.
However, I’m not sure if this behaviour by the media is a deliberate attempt to create a smoke screen (unless we’re talking about the Guardian which seems to be staffed almost enirely by MI5/MI6 people).
I think the mainstream media knows what appeals to the public and that personal scandal sells newspapers: Most people are complacent about mere trifles like clobbering the poor and disabled, engagingin illegal wars, climate change and the threat of a nuclear war Armageddon. Rationality is not the quality in human beings that springs to mind…
Mark Field was just giving the woman the roughing up she deserved, or he thought she deserved.
He was the only person who reacted and in the way he did, he showed himself to be the odious piece of shit that he is.
But he may have bitten more than he can chew. He may find that wherever he goes he may now be s target for ‘ ‘ have a go at me ” from individuals just s bit stronger and a bit braver than him.
Life is like that. No one likes a bully, and especially s pompous high Tory like him.
The proverbial ‘ sore face ‘ may be just around the corner for our Mark.