Yesterday the House of Commons was debating “safety of journalists”. After reams of MP waffle about evil foreigners, the Alba Party was allocated 60 seconds and tried to use it to raise my case.
That is a completely unedited extract from Hansard. So much for the “mother of democracies”.
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There wasn’t much doubt for quite some time but now things are simply ore blatant and in the open.
Not The the UK was ever a genuine democracy – but the expression of dissenting opinion is certainly not getting more protection as of late.
I agree that the UK has never been a genuine democracy – if anyone could even say exactly what such a thing might be. The ancient Athenians had one for about a century, which led to them ruining everything within reach, and eventually themselves when they decided to attack Syracuse, the other big democracy of the time.
But until the 1970s or so considerable efforts were made to disguise the UK as a democracy, in such a way that the broad masses were fooled. (Like that’s hard).
Recently the iron fist has emerged unmistakeably from the velvet glove, with probably fatal consequences for the whole masquerade and perhaps for the entire political establishment.
Personally, I am inclined to attribute this to the secular decline in average intelligence. Compare today’s political leaders to those of the early 20th century – still more so to those of the Victorian era or the 18th century – and you will be astounded by the contrast. They are no longer even able to maintain the necessary fiction of democracy.
Appreciated. Thank you, Sir.
Athenian democracy survived for about a century after the Sicilian Expedition. In many ways, the golden age of Athenian democracy was the age of Demosthenes.
Athens’s demotion from the ranks of great powers and the temporary end of democratic institutions there can be dated 322 B.C., with Athens’s defeat in the Lamian War. The events of that year were the result of the superior military power of Macedon, not of any weaknesses in Athenian institutions.
Only adult males who’d completed military training were allowed to vote in ancient Athens; probably about 10% of the population. Women, slaves (of which there were many) and anybody not born in Athens were excluded.
Compared to other systems around at the time, Sparta was run like a military camp, it was a step in the right direction but a long way from anything approaching a real democracy.
Anybody who expresses preference for the Spartan system, which had the crypteia institution for killing helots who were deemed too much of a threat to the system, over Athenian democracy has told us a lot about himself.
Only 10 percent of Athenians could vote? That’s a lot lower than the estimates that I have seen. Whatever the true figure, the system was radical for its day, as we can tell by reading the complaints about it by people like Plato and Pseudo-Xenophon (aka the “Old Oligarch”). And Athens shows us how a radical democracy can be made to work. We need not imitate its exclusivity and dependence on slaves. Those were a consequence of economic constraints that no longer obtain.
Sparta; their numbers steadily declined because they didn’t like sex with women and when they did manage to produce a baby they immediately tried to kill by exposing it to the elements.
But things are even worse in Sturgeon’s Scotland, which is why we have the supreme irony of a Scottish nationalist blogger needing to take an appeal to the U.K. Supreme Court and a former senior judge from there Lord Sumption doing something down south that no one near his stature has dared to do in Scotland – speak out against the Covid Queen’s Medical Martial Law.
https://jaggy.blog/2021/06/11/the-covid-queens-medical-martial-law/
“Compare today’s political leaders to those of the early 20th century”
Perhaps the political leaders to those of the early 20th century were actually in charge rather than just having a talent for ‘reading the auto-cue’.
Can I suggest everyone use the NHS Form to nominate a Covid Hero to nominate either Craig Murray or Julian Assange or both.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-honours-nomination-form
Time to focus the bastards’ minds ?
Nomination form? Are you kidding!! They’ve made it as difficult as possible to even SEE the damn thing, never mind actually complete it! It’s in Word format and the form is a big blank rectangle on my MacBook Air and opened in LibreOffice.
A Travesty!!
I use Open Office, and I have been able to download and view the document properly on my windows10 machine. It’s more likely Libreoffice’s deficiency than a conspiracy. Or it’s a Microsoft conspiracy agains Macs 🙂
Well there we go,
A Parliament of corrupt middle management own nest feathers who don’t give a shit about – or even understand for that matter – anything
Suggests collusion between Holyrood and Westminster. Looks like they’re all out to get you Craig. You’re too damned truthful and they don’t like it.
I have always found it amusing that Western legislatures are called Parliaments – in other words, talking shops.
Whereas Russia’s legislature is called the Duma – a place where thinking is done.
Indeed. Well observed. Thank you, Sir.
Watch your mouth! You will now be red-baited (or its contemporary equivilent). It’s happened to Craig before, when seen on RT.
The ruling class really hate it when one of its (former) own blows open the lies!
Another brave gentleman comes to mind, now no longer with us, I’ve written a couple of pieces about him. His name was Harold Smith, a ‘lowly’ Foreign & Commonwealth official in Nigeria on the verge of ‘independence’ in 1960. This is what the Governor-General of Nigeria said about the brave and rather naive (at the time) Harold Smith said of him, when Smith tried to blow the gaff on the fix on Nigerian ‘independence’:
“You know why you’re here, Smith. And I want you to know that all your worst fears and suspicions are absolutely correct … I am telling you this because I want you to know how much trouble you are in … Smith, I want you to know that I personally gave the orders regarding the elections to which you objected … If you will keep your mouth shut, I can promise rapid promotion and a most distinguished career elsewhere … but you will not be allowed to work in the UK. You must understand that you know too much for your own good. If you don’t give me your word, means will be found to shut you up. No one will believe your story and the press will not be allowed to print it.”
-– Sir James Robertson, the then governor-general of Nigeria to Harold Smith in 1960.
This is a clear demonstration of one of the many reasons why Sinn Féin do not take their seats in the English parliament. They’d be wasting their breath.
Absolutely
Apart from a few of the old labour and Tory MPs there is not one with a back bone left. This lot see the state as their boss and the public as their servants.
The house of P is supposed to be sovereign but you’d think it was MI5 and the Queen that were in charge. This spineless generation of MPs have the power to change that but they have neither the gumption or the backbone to do it
Clare Daly is inspiring forthright and brave.
Craig – for what it is worth, I now more or less agree with your position on Sinn Fein.
Before, my attitude had always been that a united Ireland was obviously natural and correct, but the way the Republicans went about their business meant that people had to be protected from them. I naively imagined that the judicial system of the UK was somehow reasonably correct and in order.
This whole business has shown me just how corrupt the UK judicial system actually is – and I now fully appreciate why they resorted to the methods that they used.
Understanding that it is quite so corrupt is actually quite a shock to me.
I would suggest that once Alba MPs are elected on an Alba ticket they follow suit.
There is no effort anymore to even rationalise their hypocrisy and bad faith on “safety of journalists” and most other issues. That’s because they know they will never be challenged about it by “the world’s freest press”. On the contrary the British media is eager to amplify pompous repetition of tight Establishment groupthink and wilful blindness. Anyone saying anything outside the bubble of received wisdom is immediately suspect and must be smeared or even jailed.
I clicked through to read it on the parliament website. What was the Deputy Speaker doing wishing GB News, a commercial company, the “best of British?”
As for “We have to go to the wind-ups,” I’m sure there’s a joke there but it is not yet 6am here and I can’t think of one.
It is a new hard right channel, dedicated to reactionary culture war nonsense. Deeply unpleasant, but the sort of thing it is safe for the speaker to celebrate in the UK parliament.
Donate button worked this time!
Well, ar least Neale got you on the record, which was nice of him.
Tempted to say that’s ‘better than a kick in the teeth’, but 60 seconds & “Order. Sorry, we have to go to the wind-ups.” felt a bit like a kick in the teeth.
Mother of democracies? More like defiler of democracy……. & baby murderers….. let’s be honest….. need to “Reset’ that sh!t.
Agreeing to the choices of establishment hoots and rah rah never was a democracy, dare I say people never matter unless an outcome of an issue is inevitable and has to be accommodated.
A Parliament run and guided by woke politicians riding the waves of #metoo and BLM# on a surfboard of lies (the corp o rat media) trying to keep public opinion on side with edicts and blue kites galore.
These people will never change, they need raising by their own petard.
Rome ruled for 400 years and this lot is still inured by them and by the simple edicts of the 1930/40.
I refer the honourable women and men here to the much quoted ‘sharpen the pitchforks’, be prepared for non-violent disobedience and resulting.
Can we organise sharpen the pitchfork party/ies for Independence from planned tyranny/trashing the future for our kids?
what the eff does BLM have to do with “wokeness”. what the eff is somebody who apparently doesn’t like government oppression doing opposing BLM which is based on murderous government thugs overstepping their authority. if you don’t like what the government is doing to Craig Murray, and you’re honest, then you don’t like murderous rampaging goverment thugs slowly choking people to death on the sidewalk, or shooting them in the back and planting weapons on them, or any of the other numerous ways cops violate the law, often without even losing their jobs.
The Speaker was nobbled and not ennobled.
The new speaker is a nobby nut.
Who delivers the Fascists State unmasked to reveal the grisly deaths head and dark sun they worship.
Would he take the knee? By gad he did his grovel afore the maarm already.
No lives matter to our new speaker except his further nob seeking grovel.
I’d like to hear what the ex has to say about the current daily knee jobs.
I counted 28 seconds to read.
‘What?! Garavelli you say! That’s quite enough of that, order!’
Ordure, more like.
I have always thought that this could not be an affair purely of the Scottish Establishment.
I have just watched on the BBC Parliament channel and have to admit Neale Hanvey did in fact get his full minute (generosity!).
Watch from 2:48:35 – https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000x14j/house-of-commons-10062021
And the contribution from (the odious) John Nicholson, SNP, praises “the brave young journalist Roman Protasevich …”.
Oh come now, Protasevich served with the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion. Whatever the status of democracy in Belarus (and I suspect Lukashenko legitimately won the last election albeit under a controlled media (and we’re not in a position to take a lofty position in that respect)), don’t try to sanitise Nazi scum.
One of the problems seems to be that without the support of a major party it’s difficult to get anything discussed in Parliament. There is the possibility given by a petition. If you can get 100,000 signatures there “can” be a debate in Parliament, 10 000 requires an official reply.
I don’t think the debate is obligatory and as it is debated by MPs you need to have some willing to support your petition. From what I can make out this would be unlikely to be an SNP or Tory MP and Labour only have one MP, Alba have 2 and Liberals 4. There is also a private member’s questions that would lead to the same problems. Ditto for the Scottish Parliament although the procedures are perhaps different.
The results are alas unlikely to be stupendous if the debate on Palestine the other day was anything to go by, most of the speeches were very flat, unemotional, despite the over 200 deaths and couched with infinite verbal precautions. Even so coupled with collective efforts combined with such a parliamentary debate might have some effect.
“One of the problems seems to be that without the support of a major party it’s difficult to get anything discussed in Parliament”.
Which is one of the main reasons that the UK is not a democracy. The political parties are the main means by which the powers that be stifle any approach to real democracy, and ensure that ordinary people have no influence at all.
If we wanted a democratic system, one of the first steps would be to make political parties illegal – on pain of imprisonment. (Fines are no good, as the rich backers just pay them and carry on rejoicing).
Think about it. You go to vote – but you cannot vote for a free, independent person whose qualities you admire and whom you trust to represent your interests. No! Instead, you vote for a party, meaning that you give your approval to a whole manifesto – most of which, quite likely, you deplore.
Appeal to your MP about anything, and after the usual delay, what do you get? A polite letter containing boilerplate that sets out the party’s policy.
Last but not least, established parties effectively prevent any independent candidates attaining office. That is the main reason Donald Trump was so hated when he was elected President. He did an end-run around both parties – neither of which would have approved him as an official candidate if they had any choice. The system isn’t meant to allow such diabolical liberties.
“Last but not least, established parties effectively prevent any independent candidates attaining office.”
Like in 1945?
Two more weeks of campaigning, or an extra 100k votes, in 2017 and Jeremy Corbyn would have been PM.
Brexit aside, a stronger leader (no disrespect to JC) could have carried that support through to 2019.
Ok, yes, they put paid to that, but it’s not, and never is, a done deal.
Democracy is a process, not an end point.
“Brexit aside, a stronger leader (no disrespect to JC) could have carried that support through to 2019.”
Nice bit of victim blaming there. What on earth is a ‘strong leader’?
“Two more weeks of campaigning, or an extra 100k votes,”
Perhaps a few less ‘postal ballots’.
Sorry, I can’t agree here, I think political parties are the basis of democracy… on the condition that they themselves function democratically, of course. Independent candidates exist but how can an individual work out the solutions to economic, political and all the other problems of even a medium-sized country alone? In a city state of centuries ago maybe but not today. On the other hand structured political parties can do this, it is in local cells or sections or branches, whatever name you use, that members can debate, organize their actions and educate themselves politically. I think the major cause for the political wilderness of today is that parties function either badly or not at all and the cause is to a great degree the apathy of most people who are no longer willing to devote an evening a month or so to such essential political activity. Several people have commented that politicians today are not up to the standard of years ago and this is my impression too, not just in Britain but elsewhere, and I suspect that is because they haven’t gone through years of local level militancy and democratic debate that forged the intellect and the morale of previous generations.
Sorry to rant, but the notion that “political parties are the problem” is a theme pushed by the media who wish that to be the case, the rich can pay their “think tanks” and so on, ordinary people can’t, they have to do it themselves and the only way that they have devised to do this is to group together in political parties.
Well yes. Unfortunately most of the Tory party and a massive proportion of the Labour Party are card carrying Friends of Israel and see the Authoritarian so-called democracy of Israel, an enclave with no boundaries, as the pinnacle of democracy… If this is their inspiration for democracy of Britain then count me out….
It is for the membership at branch level to sort out. Easier said than done as we have just seen that even experienced militants like Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Livingstone were unable to do this. The only hope is at the bottom of the party structure when the top becomes corrupt – it wouldn’t be the first time they failed though, the Soviet Union went the same way.
It’s an awful lot of work, I gave up years ago I have to admit. It’s for the young and the incredibly determined which is why the corrupt often seem to win. The Cromwell method as cited above is another method but has its inconveniences too and is only possible in extreme circumstances..
Ian mclachlan (14.01); I assume you are referring to the parliamentary parties rather than the entire memberships.
The reason Athenian democracy could work even though most offices were held by ordinary citizens chosen by lot (no parties) was that many such ordinary citizens had become familiar with politics by serving on the Council (Boule). This is one of the main themes of Anna Missiou, “Literacy and Democracy in Fifth-Century Athens” (Cambridge 2011).
“how can an individual work out the solutions to economic, political and all the other problems of even a medium-sized country alone?”
Britain administered the largest empire ever known without political parties as we know them today. Yes, they had the Whigs and Tories, but there was noting like the voting along party lines in Parliament that happens now. No-one listens to speeches any more, they already know how they are going to vote. Indeed ,most are not even present, having “paired off” with an MP from the opposing party. 200 years ago the government had no majority to rely on and had to resort to bribing MPs with money or political office to get a bill through that they particualrly needed to.
“on the condition that they themselves function democratically,”
Well they never have. Labour’s constitution has always been a dog’s dinner designed to favour certain of its founding groups, there’s nothing democratic about the Tories and the SNP started out with compulsory reselection by the party members but that seems to have disapeared. Should any party have internal democracy they will be infiltrated by our real rulers in the security services and whoever they might serve.
” the apathy of most people who are no longer willing to devote an evening a month or so to such essential political activity.”
If the party does not have internal democracy then perhaps the branch meatings do not welcome such activity.
“Several people have commented that politicians today are not up to the standard of years ago”
Perhaps people who are up to such a standard have been systematically weeded out in favour of people who can be manipulated by our real masters.
“You go to vote – but you cannot vote for a free, independent person whose qualities you admire and whom you trust to represent your interests. No! Instead, you vote for a party, “
I’d have to be Methuselah to remember when you voted for the candidate, but I am old enough to remember when you voted for the party. Now you vote for the party’s leader: “are you voting for Boris or Jeremy?” the papers asked at the last GE, or “Alex or Nicola?” at the recent Scottish election.
That began with the otherwise forgettable Neil Kinnock, as older observers will recall, and his famous romantic party political broadcast ending with his own name instead of Labour. To start a personality cult he was lacking only a personality.
I think we should gather signatures for a petition for Craig and for the principle of free speech and free reporting to avoid this kind of scapegoating and censorship and threat. Politicians and the legal system need to be accountable, that we are so far from that show that we need changes. The post-Thatcher world has indeed created people who are easily led and manipulated and selfish without even knowing it in most cases.
A Jenny Geddes is needed in that chamber of deceit. A stool >any of both definitions will do< hurled at the Speaker would take less than sixty seconds.
“A Jenny Geddes is needed in that chamber of deceit”.
Or, better still, an Oliver Cromwell.
“It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice.
Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government.
Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.
Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?
Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?
Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?
Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance.
Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God’s help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do.
I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place.
Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.
In the name of God, go!”
Tom Welsh
Stirring stuff. Good thing you don’t live in Scotland because Humza YouSap’ s Thought police would be ringing your mobile like me yesterday for a distasteful comment about Kashoggi and speaking truth to power.
Edinburgh’s provincial elite can’t decide whether to get Brownie points for copying Westminster’s annoyance with Craig Murray or treat him as one of their dissident mob.
Sentencing him to 8 months in prison is a virtue signal to Westminster as well as being their normal vicious treatment of their local critics.
Dorrian is playing for time to see so how her nasty gamble will work out. If the Supreme Court starts criticising her illegal and stupid arguments , she can always crawl back to them apologising for her silly mistake.
The Supreme Court might well take a very dim view of the Hate Crime Bill as an bad law and unworkable law, constantly annoying the higher courts with asinine arguments and legal appeals when they have better things to do, waiting police time with petty vendettas because of provincial arrogance.
It is not something Independence enthusiasts want to hear, but Rome’s answer to Zionist independence in 73 BC was to dismantle the Temple which Cromwell was referring to.
Arrogant , stupid, provincial elites are truly infuriating to the colonial overlords.
They are paid to manage and govern , not add petrol to the fire of local rebellion.
Dorrian , stupid cow, is well out of her depth here.
A reasonably detailed and fair reporting of the case from the ICFI.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/06/11/murr-j11.html
The more international coverage the better.
Not bad at all – apart from where the article says that the mainstream media “also” published information about the accusers. That of course implies that Mr Murray did so, which he was at pains to avoid.
I was struck by this passage:
“The case also exposed the extraordinarily close ties between Sturgeon’s inner circle, the Crown Office, the Scottish Civil Service and Police Scotland”.
Is it wrong that I was reminded of the situation in the USSR after Lenin’s death? No one thought that Stalin had the slightest chance of succeeding to the leadership – but no one knew that Stalin, too, had established “extraordinarily close ties” to almost everyone who mattered. Either he had an agreement with them, or he had a hold over them, or he had promised them something that sufficed to gain their support.
That’s how practical politics works. Never mind the issues, still less the principles – focus on winning the loyalty (such as it may be) of as many important individuals as you can.
They’ll be very few Westminster politicians that care whether or not you go to prison, I’m sure the state security service will breathe a sigh of relief on your incarceration, as will Sturgeon, as will the guilty of jigsaw and outright naming of the complainants unionist hacks.
At least the Alba party tried to draw attention to your unjust conviction.
Could have been worse. He could have offered to help you. –
“the wind-ups”
Like the Woolsack, this exemplifies the traditionalism that imparts to the British legislative both charm and majesty: the automata you have sitting in Parliament are still clockwork, rather than solid-state.
Sorry for the repeat.
IMHO it was good enough to be worth repeating. 😎
He didn’t hesitate or deviate, so I suppose they must have got him for repetition.
“Panelbase” I reckon did for him
I think he stepped on a mine – he said the name “Garavelli”.
The Neale-Nigel exchange will be so familiar to any underdog who has ever tried to help any authority to understand the truth of where the real problem lies.
Also, the more any institution or authority talks about some social justice issue, the more you know that something is being hidden, and that a smokescreen is being made precisely in order to pre-empt criticism from ‘the public’. Nobody would need to talk about such issues as the safety of journalists in a country administered by grown-ups.
What I have so much trouble comprehending is why a state would spend millions of pounds indulging itself and indulging criminals, wasting so much money on public resources, show trials, expensive propaganda, the protection of the identities of sex offenders, false accusers, and dirty politicians, and then turn around and say to its people that there is no money for vaccines, education, foreign aid, and so on.
I remember people saying in 2010 that if you weren’t outraged, then you weren’t awake. What are we to say today? With every inch gained by hyper-/post-Thatcherite fascism, it is hard to imagine now a return to what now amazingly looks like the nicer 2010s?
Marmite, Modern Money Theory (MMT) explains thus: – ‘money’ is created by government via treasury account at central bank, i.e. money = numbers. Taxes also = numbers. Its therefore wilful manipulation for a state to declare or be accused of “spending millions of pounds indulging itself and criminals […] and then turn around and say to its people that there is no money for vaccines, education, foreign aid, and so on.”
Money in and of itself cannot be “wasted” any more than space on a spread sheet can. It is nonsense to say ‘there’s not enough money’ for ‘this or that’ IF its for sale in the economy. The ONLY limit to how much money government can spend is available resources, such as labour, materials, land, air, minerals, fossil fuels, etc.
Be that as it may, when the time of people (labour, if you want to call it that, and labour being something that costs money) is spent on persecuting innocent people, when it could be diverted to more productive/benevolent causes like food programs or homeless shelters, it can be considered to be wasted.
MMT seems to want to deny common sense, but do correct me if I have missed something. Surely one can waste one’s money on cigarettes, when the more sensible thing to do would be to purchase spinach.
Marmite, MMT distinguishes between currency issuers and currency users.
Only government / central bank can issue currency and spend it into circulation (i.e. money creation / printing) and only available resources (labour + materials) ultimately limit how much money can be created, not how many numbers you can store on a spread sheet.
The rest of the economy (normal house holds and firms) are all currency users who are all limited by the quantity of currency (spread sheet numbers) available to them.
Only house holds and firms have to worry about diverting their limited numbers “to more productive/benevolent causes”.
Government / central bank on the other hand, do not have to divert money flows “to more productive/benevolent causes” because when you control the nations currency printing press, money is unlimited – would you mess about with budgets if you owned such a printing press? 😉
Well said Natasha.
THE biggest con in considering public finances is to compare Government income/expenditure to household budget. Governments cannot go broke, because it is governments that create money – and the idea of governments having to avoid ‘running’ a deficit is nonsense.
Governments and neoliberal/ neoclassical economists pretend that it is otherwise for POLITICAL reasons, not for economic ones. As you say, the only limit is the ability of the economy to respond – issuing money beyond that capacity WILL cause inflation – but most of our economies run so far below capacity as to make that notion nonsensical.
Governments pretend that they need to ‘balance’ the books in order to create deliberate scarcity in areas that suit them politically to do so – and they run economies below capacity in order to maintain unemployment, force down wages and salaries, maximise profits and dividends (to them and their mates) and to restrict the collective bargaining power of workers and their trade-unions.
The best way to think of money is it’s a bit like blood – in a balanced economy (as you describe above) it cannot be over-issued – but is required to circulate to maintain, and increase economic activity – there is no reason we cannot have full employment, other than the political aims cited above.
So “why a state would spend millions of pounds indulging itself and indulging criminals, wasting so much money on public resources, show trials, expensive propaganda” is very simple: that money goes to the ‘right sort of people – lawyers, advertising agencies, PR companies, lobbyists and all the rest of their chums and members of the bullshit economy that supports the Tories and their chums. The money is spent on posh restaurants, big houses, fast cars, yachts, country estates, second homes (depriving locals of accommodation) and the surplus is ‘invested’ in instruments of fictitious capital, that keeps their City chums in champagne, caviar and all of the above.
Whereas, if they wasted it by giving it to the people, it would circulate faster, creating more employment, better public service, education and health care, and properly rewarding people who do real jobs and provide public services.
And we simply cannot have that, can we?
I agree with a lot of what you say but I wonder if the Greeks would?
All of which assumes remaining in the present capitalist system, of course, but I don’t see many who have a different viable system to propose.
Bruce,
The problems the Greeks had was that they didn’t have their own currency – they had the Euro – and that was controlled by the Germans – the Greeks had lost their monetary sovereignty.
There is a lesson there – and why when Scotland gains independence, we should use our own currency – and not the Euro (at least at first) and certainly not Sterling! Scotland will need our own Currency.
“All of which assumes remaining in the present capitalist system” indeed – and deplorable as it is, we are stuck with it – for now
So when you are doing your thing in a Greenpeace protest, and the police officer arrests you, and claims that you are a drain on public resources and diverting their attention from fighting real criminals, they are bullshitting? Or they just have no sense of MMT?
And when the magistrates puts you in prison, saying you are not only a public menace but wasted police time, they are also bullshitting? Or they just have no sense of MMT?
I know what you are saying, I think, but I am just trying to understand how it applies on the ground.
Are you really telling me that it is of benefit to a government that people with the slimiest of intentions maximise the wastage of the time of all kinds of authorities and civil servants?
I’m sorry, economics is not my strong point (as you will have guessed), and I don’t mean any disrespect.
Marmite, I think that many of your questions were adequately answered by Oliver Cromwell in the speech I quoted above.
Particularly:
“Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?”
Tom, I’m fast losing the will to live.
The current 64 billion defence bill…power projection via expensive ships and planes yet to be…USA tanks that will not work….plus all the other hundreds millions by Thatcher for propaganda …white helmets and all the other support for Syrian regime change..support for Ulraine…integrity intiative….all the shenanegins of intelligence services and the Foreign Commonwealth Development Office exposure by anonymous…
Ye gods. We and they despair.
I have just read through quickly using the Twitter link the whole debate and what a lot of meaningless tokenistic hog wash. Will anyone actually take notice of Richard Burgon and John McDonnell in raising the shame on this country of Julian Assange and Neil Hanvey in the case of Craig Murray? Or even of the several people who raised the Israeli air strike atrocities? And as for the eulogising of the BBC! I agree Parliament is a sham talking shop. No doubt they now with some exceptions be patting themselves on the back as defenders of press freedom and safeguarding angels of journalists. Blah blah blah.
The display of double standards and selective concern, another timeless tradition.
Cut short but nevertheless a point was made. So what happens now (apart from nothing)?
I assume that Hanvey went beyond 60 seconds. But I’m glad that
(a) the main points (about Craig Murray) got into the permanent parliamentary record;
(b) Dani Garavelli (unlike Craig Murray) was evidently considered unimportant, since the mention of him got censored as not worth elaborating on 🙂
smily face the coup de grace .. devastating!
Mr.( Deputy) Speaker,
There is something I would like to state on the issue at hand…( interruption)
” Order, sorry, we have to go to the wind-ups.”
Why would an appeal to the Supreme Court cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. It seems an astonishing amount of money. And if they accept the case 2 or 3 weeks work? I wonder about that as the sentence has been postponed for 4 weeks.
One QC
One solicitor
Admin backup
Archibold or Scottish equivalent.
In the Pan Am appeal I understand they would not consider an appeal based on the PCB being different. One witness was paid to provide evidence. They still threw the appeal out. It seems very difficult to win appeals.
The sentence has been postponed for four weeks for the Supreme Court to accept it, not to hear it.
You may or may not be well-meaning, but there is so much naivety and ignorance behind that comment on costs it really is not helpful.
My sincere apologies. I was working from costs from a long time ago. I am not neutral in this matter. I really want you to win your case.
Black QC
In Scottish criminal appeal cases the UK Supreme Court cannot simply overturn a decision of the Scottish court; it only has jurisdiction to decide whether there might have been a breach of the appellant’s rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. A decision that there had been such a breach would not by itself overturn the conviction but would result in the case being sent back to the Scottish court for it to consider the issue and apply the right test under the European Convention, which might or might not result in a different decision being reached in relation to the conviction.
Permission to appeal to the Supreme Court will be granted only if the case raises an arguable point of law of general public importance which ought to be considered by the Supreme Court.
Maybe the Supreme Court turning down Right to Appeal to itself would be a good thing, if that means one could make an application to the ECHR and circumvent the back and forwards?
Well, on the plus side the mask has dropped: there is no rule of law, or democracy.
…and perhaps the Deputy Speaker is not too bright, but he also outed ‘brave, truth telling’ (rofl) Garavelli as an ‘asset’ of ‘da man’, and that he himself had been briefed.
…and it seems unlikely that Westminster is so commited to supressing the truth about the Sturgeon Gang unless – as Craig himself believes – the Sturgeon Gang are actually moles on the Westminster team.
Democracy and free speech appear to be a total illusion, maybe it has always been like that but now the deception is more in your face and having real implications to citizen life. Democracy can so easily be manipulated by a wealthy power elite, I believe that despite it probably always being that way we are now seeing an emergence of a new global totalitarianism that I can best describe as soft and fluffy, smiley face corporate feudal elite.
I suggest that if Neale Hanvey (or any MP) just happened to be a multi billionaire MP with a knighthood, Im sure he would have been allowed to finish his public statement in parliament. My fear for the future is MPs will only be able to speak if it supports the global power elite agenda.
“if Neale Hanvey (or any MP) just happened to be a multi billionaire MP with a knighthood, Im sure he would have been allowed to finish his public statement in parliament.”
He wouldn’t have become a multi billionaire MP with a knighthood if he was inclined to make such statements.