On Saturday a small, socially distanced vigil of 18 people for Julian Assange at Piccadilly Circus was broken up by twice that number of police and one elderly man arrested and taken into custody. The little group of activists have been holding the vigil every week. I had just arrived to thank them and was astonished to see eight police vans and this utterly unnecessary police action. There could not be a clearer example of “Covid legislation” being used to crack down on unrelated, entirely peaceful political dissent.
I was myself questioned by a policeman who asked me where I lived, how long I had been in London and why, what I had been doing at the Assange trial and when I was going back to Edinburgh. (You can see me very briefly at 10mins 30 secs trying to reason with a policeman who was entirely needlessly engaging in macho harassment of a nice older lady).
Later in the evening I had dinner with Kristin Hrafnsson, editor-in-chief of Wikileaks. I returned to my hotel about 11pm, did my ablutions and went to bed. Just after midnight I was awoken by an insistent and extremely loud pounding at the door of my room. I got naked out of bed and groped my way to open the door a chink. A man dressed like the hotel staff (black trousers, white shirt) asked me when I was checking out. I replied in the morning, and pointed out the hotel knew I was leaving the next day. Why was he asking in the middle of the night? The man said “I was asked to find out”. I closed the door and went back to bed.
The next morning I complained in the strongest possible terms, the hotel refunded me one night’s accommodation. The duty manager who did this added “It was not our fault” but said they could not tell me any more about why this had happened.
The person at my door had a native English accent. I had been staying in the hotel over four weeks and I think I know all of the customer facing staff – not a single one of them has a native English accent. I had never seen that man before. This was a four star hotel from a major chain. I suspect “do not get sleeping guests out of bed after midnight to ask them what time they are checking out” is pretty high on their staff training list. I cannot help but in my mind put it together with my encounter with the police earlier that day, and their interest in when I was returning to Edinburgh, but there seems no obvious purpose other than harassment.
The hotel incident may just be in the strange but unexplained category. The busting of the Assange vigil earlier is of a piece with the extraordinary blanking of the hearing by corporate media and the suppression of its reporting on social media. These are dangerous times.
I am now safely back home in Edinburgh.
I’m afraid many commenting here haven’t yet understood that this is no longer about left v. right, and will be deeply disappointed when they see Starmer, or whoever it will be next, in his true colours. In the USA it is mostly the Republicans who are defending our rights against this new world-wide totalitarianism, along with the Libertarians, but the Democrats are mired in corruption. I would also warn not to put any hope in the ECHR. My personal experience is they are totally corrupt and beyond redemption. What is happening now is something much bigger even than the WW2 Holocaust. The “sides” are not what they used to be, but good men and women will be recognized by their fruits.
True.
The problem is first past the post Democracy.
It never ends up as the majority of the people as 30% to 40% don’t get involved in voting.
I’ll only observe this:
In the last election considering the high stakes the turnout struck me as quite low relative to the Brexit?Remain vote.
I think an average of 35% plus voted by post.
That was very high ( double the last election ) and it begs the question as to why many of those people couldn’t be bothered to physically turn out as they used to do?
Which begs a second question:
Who encouraged them to not physically turn out and why?
First past the post is not the best system.
It was 38% voting by post at the last election(2019) – which is a huge leap on 2010, 2015 and 2017 which were all in the teens so suspiciously high imho.
——
On the subject of incompetence, just reading £12bn has been allocated to the NHS’s botched ‘world beating’, ‘Track and Trace’ system. Clearly some people are getting incredibly wealthy from this pandemic,… endemic corruption? Wonder if the bloke who went to jail for selling the Iraqis and others fake bomb detectors is getting in on this covid contract scam market?
No doubt the establishment’s MR FIX IT, keir Starmer, as Sir Jimmy Savile OBE KCSG would call him , won’t make any complaints.
Say one thing for Mr Fix it, Starmer, he’s more loyal a deputy to Johnson than Watson ever was to Corbyn 🙂
“First past the post is not the best system.”
It is from the point of view of the Tory Party, and they are the ones in charge.
My attempts to post a mention of this as a Guardian comment are being repeatedly blocked or deleted.
Craig comments on the hearing in this video interview from 2 days ago (where he’s compared with Tacitus!).
Good to see that he’s looking very well.
Apologies if the link has already been posted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtwpzqAJMBo&feature=emb_logo
Please excuse my impatience, but is there any update on when the last days report will be published?
Cess, apologies once I removed myself from the trial bubble, the rest of my life I had put on hold for a month came rushing at me like a monster truck. Still working on it.
Certainly less is more with only eighteen peaceful protesters and did you say four police vans,and seemingly you drew some of their strength out into the open as well as tactics that are used and will continue to be used. One obviously does not need a large crowd which might confuse issues. I think you have been successful.
How is the elderly man doing in custody? Has he been allowed a phone call? Has he been brought before a magistrate?
—
[ Mod: He posted an update further up the thread. (In view of the advanced age of some regulars on this blog, you may reconsider whether the word ‘elderly’ is appropriate here.) ]
N_. He has written in to this post if you scroll up.
As someone who is today celebrating his 74th birthday, I see nothing wrong with the word “elderly”. Although I prefer to call myself “old”.
Happy birthday!
Many happy returns of the day, lysias!
i too am a geezer, say it loud, say it proud. happy bday.
Déjà vu! A similar number of police vans were parked up in the side streets off Kensington High St when a large crowd had gathered to protest at the Israeli Embassy about the Cast Lead barbarities in December 2008.
The police suddenly waded in and the crowd was ‘kettled’. Several young men were arrested and ended up with criminal convictions at Isleworth Crown Court. Some even went to prison.
Arrests over Israeli embassy demo
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7803733.stm.
The JC version from Jessica Elgot.
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/seven-jailed-for-gaza-protest-violence-1.14040
There were NO public order offences. Th crowd was peaceful. until the kettling started.
Ms McBeth of the BBC was prone to wild exaggeration in her report linked above. Where is she now?**
** Still writing fiction! :). http://colettemcbeth.co.uk/
Suppose the old gentleman in question can at least be thankful he didn’t get the Ian Tomlinson treatment. Though with Keir Starmer QC, no longer the Director of Public Prosecutions, the police would probably be more gentle.
Quote from Socialist Appeal :
“In 2008, CPS refused to revisit wrongful convictions resulting from Mark Kennedy unlawfully infiltrating activist organisations by seducing members. In 2009, Starmer declined to indict the officers who shot Brazilian immigrant Jean Charles de Menezes.
And in 2010, he initially refused to try PC Simon Harwood after he shoved Ian Tomlinson, a homeless newspaper seller, to the ground during the G20 summit protests. Tomlinson died of internal bleeding. Starmer argued he died of “natural causes.”
Additionally, he authored rules to give the police greater power to arrest demonstrators following the 2010 student protests. Sir Keir’s enthusiasm for rapid and harsh sentencing after the London riots of 2011 led his successor to describe his legal advice as a “collective loss of proportion” and a denial of “humanity or justice”.
Later, the CPS appealed a decision from a lower court to release Julian Assange on bail. Starmer advised lawyers from Sweden (investigating accusations of rape) not to question Assange in Britain. And leaked emails show that, when they expressed doubts about the case, Starmer’s office replied: “Don’t you dare get cold feet.”
Ye gods! Who have Labour members elected?
Goose: “Who have Labour members elected?”
A Trojan horse politician in the mould of Tony Blair, Oh, and is (or was) a member of the Trilateral Commission. https://labourheartlands.com/sir-keir-starmer-the-establishment-candidate-the-labour-leadership-race-and-the-trilateral-commission/
Starmer’s role as ‘opposition’ leader seems to be to ‘call’ for things that Johnson’s regime and/or Tory donors already want – today it is to question the 10pm curfew.
Not that Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP are any better – in fact they are worse, giving cover to Johnson over the ‘coronavirus’ lock-ups at a crucial time, when the Scots might otherwise have rebelled.
Starmer is an establishment “safe pair of hands”, serving the interests of the elite. Sadly, just another side of the Tory coin.
Being the beneficiary of the prolonged — and ultimately successful — campaign to oust Jeremy Corbyn from the Labour leadership, he will no doubt give full support to the small Middle-Eastern country that played such a significant role in giving him his new job.
“A Trojan horse politician in the mould of Tony Blair”
Exactly this – no wonder he “refused to revisit wrongful convictions resulting from Mark Kennedy unlawfully infiltrating activist organisations by seducing members”. Kennedy is obviously a man after “Sir” Keir’s own heart.
You’re right to point at Labour members. They heard him being loudly endorsed by George Osborne and the rest of the rightwing commentariat but did not see any significance in that. Absolute cretins who have erased any choice and hope from English politics.
There are lots of people defending Starmer in the guardian’s btl comment sections. Although, as Aaron Bastani highlights on twitter, many of his supporters are former Lib Dems; some still have the #FBPE(Follow Back, Pro EU) hashtag, i.e., they’re the pro-EU lot who forced Labour into its disastrous second referendum policy that demolished red wall support. A policy pressed for most vocally by one Sir Keir Starmer, now dropped by him as if it never happened.
The centrists are now pissed off with McCluskey of Unite, for redirecting 10% of their funds away from Labour and to left-wing ‘grassroots’ organisations. The political right have so many in-built advantages in our system; an endless list think tanks and pressure groups and lobbyists, many in plush central London offices, funded by mysterious backers. It seems only right that the unions shouldn’t put all their eggs in one basket and should try to level things up somewhat.
Goose
The second referendum policy had nothing to do with the red wall. Radio 4 PM interviewed a Tory red wall voter yesterday.
Is it a voxpop when the BBC broadcasts an entirely fake allahu Akbar or northern voter for Boris from a pool of unemployed actors working for Tory HQ?
“A policy pressed for most vocally by one Sir Keir Starmer, now dropped by him as if it never happened”
The Tories wont be so forgetful of it come the next election. Even before it was clear quite how rightwing he is, Labour members could not have picked a leader less likely to be trusted by the lost voters in Brexit seats. As Sir 2nd Referendum he never made any sense electorally.
I’d like to say as a long time labour member and activist that the last leadership election was about as rigged as you could do whilst looking like a mistake.
The election was not carried out by the usual organisation. Postal votes were not received. Online votes were marked as advertising and ended up in spam folders, dates were made unclear. In the end Sir Keith was elected with an overwhelming majority…. of only 34% of members.
Starmer won over the younger members and middle class recent joiners who understood little of the history of the labour right. And I’m afraid to say like a lot of remainers were delusional about cancelling Brexit and they were extremely easy to manipulate.
You’d have thought any lingering confusion in the membership as to what Starmer represents politically would’ve been dispelled when he allowed alleged WikiLeaks revealed informant Ruth Smeeth (or she allowed him?) to introduce him for his speech, “Ruth Smeeth exemplifies the values of my Labour Party”, he gushed about this alleged asset of a foreign country.
There’s even talk of him parachuting Ruth Smeeth into a seat. Although it’d be a risky move, as Smeeth isn’t exactly popular with Labour members, and if she loses, it’d obviously reflect v. badly on him and his judgement.
Shatnersrug, your last sentence is the key to understanding this historic disaster. The sane delusion that forced a catastrophic 2nd referendum policy on Corbyn.
I have to disagree with you Brian, as I doubt very many left-wing members read any of the right-wing propaganda rags, and the ‘Blairite’ anti-Corbyn members – who are much more likely to read one or the other of them – didn’t need any convincing to vote for him anyway.
And I have little doubt that in the weeks and months after Jeremy lost the 2019 GE and announced he would be standing down (when a new leader is elected), left-wing members were leaving in droves on the one hand, and right-wing members who had left during the time Jeremy was leader, were joining the party again en masse on the other. And since he was elected leader, Starmer and Co have been doing everything they can to infuriate the remaining left-wing members and have them leave of their own volition in anger, the sacking of RBL being one such ‘prompter’, and paying substantial damages to Ware and Co being another, to name just two such episodes. Oh, right – I’d almost forgotten about it! – the new GS of the NEC writing to every single CLP telling them that they can’t discuss certain issues, issues that he and Starmer and Co know only the left have problems with:
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/letter-to-david-evans-general-secretary-of-the-labour-party/
Corbyn-supporting members cant be let off the hook I’m afraid, Alan. They were still an overwhelming majority of the voters in this year’s leadership election — people who had originally joined to turn the party left. And you didnt need to read the rightwing press to be aware of the establishment support for Starmer. Anyone with eyes or ears was aware that every so called centrist who’d hated on Corbyn for years was supporting Starmer.
Shatner has it right above. They handed the Labour party back to the right (probably forever) because they could not accept they lost the referendum in 2016 and thought Starmer shared their love for the EU. The same entitled petulance that had forced a 2nd referendum policy and certain electoral defeat on Corbyn.
Sorry Brian, but you’re wrong. An overwhelming majority of left-wing Corbyn supporter members didn’t vote for anyone. Yes, you could argue of course that by doing so they let Starmer in, but there were two things in particular that put many left-wingers off of voting for her, as I’m sure you’re aware, one of them being her signing up to the BoDs so-called ten pledges, and having Jon Lansman as her campaign manager for the leadership election. How the latter came about I have no idea, but the implication is that RLB was not aware of how many on the left regarded Lansman – ie untrustworthy and duplicitous to say the least.
As for signing up to the ten pledges, well she didn’t really have any choice in the matter, because if she HADN’T, she would have come under attack from all the usual suspects – ie the JLM and the CAA et al. And out of the 784,000 members and affiliate supporters who were eligible to vote, over a third of them didn’t vote at all, and including those who didn’t vote, Starmer received just over a third of the vote. In other words, almost two thirds DIDN’T vote for him, and I can assure you that none of them were right-wing blairites.
Same shit, different haircut.
Nicola Sturgeon’s evidence to Alex Salmond inquiry published
5 minutes ago
Nicola Sturgeon’s written evidence to the inquiry into her government’s botched handling of complaints against Alex Salmond has been published.
The first minister said the probe into her predecessor had caused her “a great deal of personal anguish”.
However she insisted that she “tried to do the right thing” and “did not seek to influence” the investigation.
Opposition parties have accused the Scottish government of “obstructing” the work of the Holyrood inquiry.’
/..
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-54439758
Do hope she’s got her story completely straight, because you can wager the anti-independence unionist lot will have access to the whole truth, and deploy it to sympathetic media in the course of the inde 2 referendum campaign.
Yes Mary she conveniently forgot about (lied) about her 29th of March meeting with Salmond, because it took place in Bute House, which takes it into Scottish government business, of which the information should be accessible. In my opinion she’s broken the Ministerial Code, and she must resign, taking her duplicitous husband Murrell with her. She’s tried every stalling tactic under the sun to avoid the truth coming out.
Sturgeon and Murrell are the biggest stumbling block to Scottish independence.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/here-comes-the-flood/
RoS
Aren’t you in any way torn about that? I mean, she may be flawed and overly cautious in pressing the inde case, but she’s still the best hope of delivering independence, as she has that vital leadership commodity in these crazy times : trust , which so few UK politicians have, certainly not BoJo. If Sturgeon were to resign the unionist opponents of inde would ‘be dancing in the streets of.. ‘ as late rugby commentator Bill McLaren would’ve put it. It’s not certain any new leader would have the popularity to push inde through, John Swinney certainly didn’t and wouldn’t , and what if you end up with someone worse like Humza Yousaf?
Goose she has absolutely no intentions of pushing for independence, the whole Salmond fit up was to stop him coming back and helping the real independence minded SNP MSP’s from doing that very thing. The NEC has also been captured by the woke brigade, pushing the GRA Self-Id and the Hate Crime bill ahead of independence.
The sooner she and Murrell are removed the sooner we can move on, possibly with Cherry as the new leader, who is independence minded.
It’s bigger than her though isn’t it.
Even if she is out to frustrate moves towards independence (no reason to believe that), she’s running out of excuses. And if they grab as big a victory as polls predict in next year’s Scottish Parliament election, the momentum will force them (and her) to act on that mandate will be unstoppable.
I’m sure you’d agree with the idea that if it weren’t for covid and the limit to gatherings it’s imposed, she’d be under a lot more pressure from the party’s rank and file right now.
” the momentum will force them (and her) to act on that mandate will be unstoppable.”
It would be her job to find a way of stopping it and she would have the support of similar people within the party, the MSM propaganda machine, the Integrity Initiative, and money from commercial interests.
if any of us were in the same position that you describe here,
then i can safely say that we can all feel the same chill coming down our spines.
The Conservative parties antics over the last few years has made some sense to me but not very much (putting it mildly). Always my main assumption about Brexit has been it is to rip up as much “red tape” as possible and convert Britain into a techno capitalist “utopia” much like the USA. Remove worker rights, environmental protections, now even the impediment of following the law in general.
I have just came across a website which I found interesting which give a more concrete idea of what Cummings and co may be envisioning for our future.
https://bakerstreetherald.com/2020/09/case-1-the-tabula-rasa/
What do think?
What worker rights?
Mighty Drunken
Where Nicola sturgeon, Alistair Campbell and Rees Mogg meet is a coven of ideas which is directly opposed to the rule of law, democracy socialism, national identity real money.
The article explains a lot about Nucila Sturgeon’s relationship with Westminster and how the destruction of the Law ”’ might “” possibly be a new way to finance Scottish Independence.
Create an ultra right wing onshore bubble of global capitalism , joined at the hip with the Unionists in Westminster and run Scotland as a quaint tribal cultural relic alongside a Tory financial fortress with its own independent electoral and financial rules.
Dystopia Dungeon. A slick modern free enterprise zone where slave labour is happy to spend the night in a medieval torture rack in order to have work in the shining leveraged economy of a replica plastic fortress.
Life. But not as we know it.
BBC Complicit in Illegal Surveillance of Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy…………………………….
BBC refuses to answer Freedom of Information request
https://libertyforassange.uk/bbc-surveillance-of-julian-assange-outside-the-ecuadorian-embassy-was-bbc-complicit-in-illegal-surveillance-wise-up-action-a-solidarity-network-for-manning-and-assange/
Jeremy Bentham, British philosopher, jurist and social philosopher wrote that publicity is the very soul of justice. The British state, its agents like the BBC and judiciary work with as little publicity as possible and therefore there is little or no justice. So much for any FOI requests of the BBC. They will simply state that it relates to journalism so you can just fuck off. The irony seems lost on them.
The real rot started with the BBC’s switch to the universally despised, stressful open office plan – note the corporation’s big wigs still have private offices to do their scheming in… obviously. And its introduction of semi-automated studios have made things worse. Once respected shows like Newsnight clearly have some very right-wing people behind the scenes.
That BBC letter looks fake, full of grammar errors, sentences that are missing words or simply don’t make sense. I can only assume this is a mischievous attempt to distract and undermine the genuine support for Julian Assange by tempting people to pursue allegations which then turn out to be groundless. Shame on whoever instigated this.
This is good (Cook always is)
https://dissidentvoice.org/2020/10/george-monbiots-excuses-for-not-speaking-out-loudly-in-defence-of-assange-simply-wont-wash/#more-109678
It ends thus:
“…Ultimately, the problem lies not with Monbiot. He is just serving the market, attracting socially responsible liberals to the Guardian, rationalising the paper’s reformist agenda within a suicidal, global, neoliberal economy, and preventing left-wingers from straying too far, to the point where they might contemplate a more revolutionary form of politics.
“The problem lies not with Monbiot. It lies with us. We continue to ignore the fact that we are being played by the system, that we are being placated by pale offerings like Monbiot, that our consent is needed and that we keep finding reasons to give it rather than withdraw it. Neither Monbiot nor the Guardian is going to liberate our minds. Only we can do that.”
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, None but ourselves can free our minds
A Police State starts when the First Minister does things like this.
“In conclusion, I would like to add the following personal reflections. The Committee will be considering the Scottish Government’s handling of complaints raised under the Procedure. That is, of course, legitimate. However, the Scottish Government would have had nothing to ‘handle’ had complaints not been raised about Alex Salmond’s conduct.”
Is that not your actual victim blaming right there. All lying whores of a toxic feminazi must be believed and the fault lies with the man in all circumstances. Remember she was giving it Meetoo and believeher over the Kavanaugh hearing, where another innocent man was accused of rape. Seems to be the SOP of feminists.
Despite being 100% innocent it is Alex Salmond’s fault that women lied about him.
A woman who strangely didn’t have any concerns about her near death rape experience until she was rejected as a candidate.
Sturgeon needs to go. She needs to go now. And she needs to go directly to prison. Men’s prison. She’d enjoy the company in a female gaol far too much.
A Police State starts when a judge gives liars anonymity and immunity from prosecution. That anonymity is affecting every aspect of life in Scotland.
An innocent man is prevented from revealing evidence. Other men are charged under laws applied to no-one else in our history, and prevented from using that evidence which we know exists in their defence.
When parliament is prevented from knowing all the facts as it would mein revealing the names and motivation of the alphabet sisters.
A Police state starts the people are prevented from knowing if their local candidate is a perjurer. A shameless liar. A misandrist. A woman who uses their taxes to reward organisations which publish letters stating that she will ignore any result of due legal process and continue her campaign against Salmond from behind her state awarded shield of female privilege. £500,000 to RCS 24 hours after they do her a favour. Not corrupt in the slightest.
Penguin
A few paragraphs above I read that Sturgeon will bring your country to Independence through the ballot box. Good to see that some of your countrymen are not taxidermist dummies with cotton wool between the ears.
What do they want? Craig’s antlered heàd gracing Bute house?
Penguin,
Sturgeons behaviour is an example of a movement with good ideas being co-opted for right wing political purposes, same as environmentalism. You shouldn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Of course, this raises the question of whether movements with good ideas can be deliberately assisted to grow with a view to their later co-option to some other purpose.
A few years ago, I wrote to a local paper complaining about the police helicopter that constantly disturbed my sleep (basically saying it was a waste of money). My real name was on the letter. Shortly after it was published, police knocked at the door and asked to see me (I was still living at my parents’ house at the time).
The police claimed I’d thrown a stone and broken the window of a local pub on New Year’s Eve. In fact, I’d been ill and had not been out in weeks over the Christmas period. Needless to say, nothing came of it…
One evening when walking home through thr local a helicopter was circling the fans returning from an football game (I live near a premier league stadium), they’d lost so it was all sad faces and quiet For the fans going home. The helicopter was not to far up and making a right din as you can imagine. I (foolishly) scowled at them and may have even shook my head in irritation. The next thing I knew they’d followed me down the road I became a bit anxious and ran home. I got in and thought “boy am I being foolish and paranoid“. Then I heard the sound of the chopper again – they literally buzzed around my estate all night till about 1 in the morning over our flats.
It did my head, it really was childish vindictiveness. Probably because they were bored and I had the audacity to glare at them
These are the people that the govt wants to give the power to murder with impunity. I despair.
Where do you think ‘petty officers’ comes from?
Joking aside. Some people in uniform / authority take themselves way too seriously and mockery or ridicule is tantamount to serious threat … mainly to their ego.
A few years ago I’d be stopped and searched by police within a short time-frame for no apparent reason which eventually led to among other things them feeling the need to disrupt my Argentine Tango class. During the middle of the dance class a police helicopter would put it upon themselves to land on the cricket pitch right next to the village hall directly facing the window where I was. At the end of the evening there would then be a police car waiting outside with two hatted officers sitting inside watching me leave the hall. They then would deem it necessary to do a slow drive-by coming from behind in their police car as I walked home but they didn’t stop at that they also turned around the roundabout and came down the other side of the road before turning around again and resuming their demanding jobs. And all for what? What did they hope to achieve by doing this? In the end it took the pleasure away from attending Tango classes as it naturally makes someone self-conscious.
I believe you because I remember getting followed by the police helicopter a couple of times too. One time it flew just a few feet overhead. I looked up and saw a copper sat on the edge looking down. Then they wonder why they have accidents.
Don’t let the Sharons gaslight you Craig. Never explain to these wanks. We got your back bud. Don’t doubt it.
I’m sorry to say – this is just the beginning: for what comes next – make sure you are talking from a position where you don’t take it personally when you are not believed.
More strength to your elbow .
I have written to my MP (Trevelyan, Berwick-on-Tweed) hoping to support Assange .
She has ‘confidence in British Justice’, among other bullshit responses. I hope to work against her re-election (although fellow socialists in Berwick are outnumbered by unicorns).
Don’t give up.
Your MP’s register of interests here. She is a chartered accountant.
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=25439
And the Wikipedia entry is illuminating. See ‘Controversies’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne-Marie_Trevelyan
Thanks Mary for the links on Anne-Marie Trevelyan. I only got one third of the way down the Wiki link before the nausea set in and I read no further. A truly revolting individual.
None Of It Reported’: How Corporate Media Buried The Assange Trial
7th October 2020
https://www.medialens.org/2020/none-of-it-reported-how-corporate-media-buried-the-assange-trial/
From the Medialens editors, David Edwards and David Cromwell
Mary
Bojo”s latest spaff of lies to the Tory conference about wind energy in 2030 means Cameron did good by invading Libya. After ten more years of proxy war launched from neighbouring Tunisia, Libyan oil will flow to British pockets and forecourts like Kurdish. oil is now.
I too heard the claim about every household in Britain being powered by Offshore wind power by 2030, also that he has pledged £150bn to achieve this aim. There appears to be two ways of going about it. Either; increase the number of offshore turbines, or, reduce the number of households. And, in these times, I’d put nothing past em.
It’s great piece of work from Medialens Mary..
Well done ML and the others for Calling out the BBC’s Daniel Sandford.. And Jonathan Cook, for Calling out George Monbiot
With many Links and Quotes from Craig, John Pilger, Richard Medhurst, one of the independent journalists reporting the trial, Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Rebecca Vincent, Director of International Campaigns at Reporters Without Borders, Alexander Mercouris of Consortium News, , RT’s Afshin Rattansi,
Also highlighting the extensive work of Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis of Declassified UK for articles concerning legal irregularities and conflicts of interest in the case – Link in the ML piece.
I was a wee bit perplexed by the above post from –
Sharen Green
October 6, 2020 at 19:41 – Regarding Craig’s expenses during his four weeks of indefatigable reporting of Julian’s unjust, Kangaroo Trial.. There are very many Vital observations, and details we would all know nothing of.. if it were not for Craig’s diligence, and the reporting from a mere handful of others
Enjoy your home rest and Family time Craig
Craig, I hope you are well. Thank you so much for your reporting of the Assange extradition hearing. I am eagerly expecting your account of the final days proceedings and your overall reflections, including about the methods and behaviour of the police.
Craig please don’t worry about the report till you sort out your own personal stuff. You must be exhausted, missing your family and your mind full of your own case. Wishing you well.
In preparation for US Extradition of Julian Assange the Queen has approved the appointment of Lady Emma Arbuthnot to the UK High Court.
https://www.judiciary.uk/announcements/high-court-appointment-3/
From that source: “The Lord Chief Justice will assign Emma Louise Arbuthnot to the Family Division.”
So it looks like she won’t be handling the Assange case.
Recent interview on the subject of the case for judicial recusal with investigative journalist Matt Kennard outside court: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVWJbHcVXcA&feature=youtu.be
What he says about the MSM’s bizarre disinterest in the Assange extradition case is spot on. But there again, we live in a country where Blair is forgiven for a war that killed hundreds of thousands, no ICC and Slobodan Milošević treatment for the Anglo’s, so keep taking the crazy pills and humming ‘Rule, Britannia!’
We all know that Arbuthnot never recused herself and she is no doubt handling the case during this crucial period until the ruling is handed down by Baraitser on 4 January. Her appointment to the Family Division will take effect only in February 2021.
A plausible recounting of English court treatment of Austrailian Assange.
https://greatgameindia.com/british-intelligence-julian-assange-trial/
The Milgram Experiments: A man in a lab-coat tells you to administer increasing levels of electric shocks to a stranger. How far would you go?
Men in lab-coats are telling us daily to act in an inhuman way.
Would you taser someone for making a facebook post objecting to the loss of freedom under ‘covid rules’ imposed by the doctor stasi?
Would you stop a mother or father from seeing their hospitalised child, just because there was a State border between?
Would you seperate people at a funeral, stopping them comforting one another, because ‘6 feet, folks’.
Would you refuse to let an adult see their aged mum in a nursing home?
Would you scorn, shout at, push and shove someone who was not wearing a mask?
There are those out there who would. Because a doctor told them to.
Stand up. You are losing your humanity every time you obey these threatening, punitive, bastards who are destroying our freedom, our family connectedness, our social fabric….. our Souls.
Defy the buggers.
There are faceless bureaucrats, functionaries, piddling shytes in the police and civil service, hospitals and even in businesses who are happy to do the banal actions of evil.
“Would you taser someone for making a facebook post objecting to the loss of freedom under ‘covid rules’ imposed by the doctor stasi? “
I am not legally permitted to carry a taser in the UK but were I legally entitled to do so I would not use it unless I was subject to physical attack.
“Would you stop a mother or father from seeing their hospitalised child, just because there was a State border between? “
Depends, doesn’t it, on the nature and extent of the risk imposed on that child in visiting.
“Would you seperate people at a funeral, stopping them comforting one another, because ‘6 feet, folks’.”
Yes, if there is a significant possibility that not doing so would cause sadi people or other people to require a funeral themselves.
“Would you refuse to let an adult see their aged mum in a nursing home? “
Yes, most definately. And as my own mother is in such a situation with advanced dementia in a care home and in light of what occurred in care homes in March/April the restricted visits policy is entirely justified.
Counter question. If you had symptoms of flu/cold would you vist your aged relative in a care home?
“Would you scorn, shout at, push and shove someone who was not wearing a mask?”
No.
Would you scorn, shout at, push and shove someone who was wearing a mask?
“There are those out there who would. Because a doctor told them to.”
Not the case. It is government who enact law not doctors. They may well be doctors and other specialists advising government but ultimately it is government who enact laws through parliament.
Years ago, when I first heard that teachers would no longer be allowed to touch children, I felt appalled by the unnaturalness of that and decided it was not a career path I could consider any longer.
I have not thought this before, but it occurs to me it took away a humanly essential aspect of the in loco parents role.
And that is what a lot of these guys have been raised with. No positive, affirming touch from authority figures. The dehumanised dehumanise.
I remember about 15 years ago, maybe, watching a couple of officers in Leicester Square trying to make a homeless man wake up. In the end one of them just started to push him with his foot. I had never seen anything like it, I felt so upset and angry I knew it would not be safe for me to speak.
It seems to me that the whole medico-fascism paradigm has moved things generally in a more fascistic direction throughout the “anglosphere”.
‘How a police state becomes more wicked’ would probably be a more accurate title, since we’ve been complaining about a police state since at least the time of Thatcher.
As I said in a previous post, there needs to be a campaign to reform police services. Probably this needs to precede all kinds of other action, including XR and anti-austerity.
The qualification for being an officer should not be ‘lack of gray matter, lots of muscle and height, oodles of sheepishness and ass-lickery, etc.’. Officers should be recruited on the basis that they do NOT want to carry truncheons and harrass blacks. And there really ought to be some basic ethics test to weed out the thugs.
It seems those racist choking restraints they use on people are expressly designed to trigger resistance in the body, thereby making the outcome of serious injury or death inevitable. Shocking that this is still being allowed to happen.
But then what is more shocking is how slow the British people are to be morally outraged by injustice, unless it is an injustice against their wallet. You can wave all the evidence of crimes in front of their faces, and all they will do is bugger off to the pub to drink, then piss, then drink some more. No wonder Britain is a cesspool.
When you see police intimidation like this of innocent peaceful and In many instances elderly people like this you realise how in Ireland they went down the road of violence.
This is the actions of a state that will ultimately tear itself apart. No society can live in peace with intimidation like this. Fairness needs to prevail. A rule of law, that is straight, honest and fair is a prerequisite for an orderly society.
An absolute disgrace! Just shows what this country (UK) is coming to! I don’t know how these police people can sleep at night !?
“I had been staying in the hotel over four weeks,” says Craig Murray. “This was a four star hotel from a major chain.”
Per night prices of four-star hotels in London like the Biltmore Mayfair begin at $369, and the next time this guy wants to wave a cardboard sign on a corner for a month, maybe he should take the same amount of money (over $10,000) and give it to the Red Cross instead.
Craig posted what he paid for the hotel at £92 a night. That’s £2576 for 28 nights. “This guy” didn’t just stand in a corner with a cardboard sign for a month but faithfully recorded the ins and outs of a hugely important for everyone trial. A trial that is a canary in the mine of humanity, a trial that may determine the trajectory of governance for years to come.
Quit bitching about that paltry £2576.
?