I have known George Galloway my entire adult life, although we largely lost touch in the middle bit while I was off diplomating. I know George too well to mistake him for Jesus Christ, but he has been on the right side against appalling wars which the entire political class has cheer-led. His natural gifts of mellifluence and loquacity are unsurpassed, with an added talent for punchy phrase making.
He can be fiercely pugnacious in debate and always refuses to let the media set the frame of discussion, which requires an appetite for confrontation that is harder than you might think; it is not a skill I share. But outwith the public gaze George is humorous, kind and self-aware. He has been deeply involved in politics his entire life, and is a great believer in the democratic process as the ultimate way by which the working classes will ultimately take control of the means of production. He is a very old-fashioned and courteous form of socialist.
I have to confess I have never shared the romantic view of the working classes, and have always found them in reality more likely to follow the doctrines of Nigel Farage than those of John MacLean. But George Galloway is imbued in a native democratic socialist tradition. He is a descendant of the Chartists. You cannot get more British nor more ardent a democrat than George Galloway.
Which is why I found surreal the panic at his election in Rochdale and the claim, by the Prime Minister no less, that this was an assault on “British values” and even on democracy itself.
The idea that democracy – i.e. voting for somebody – is an attack on, err, democracy was so crazy that, had we any kind of independent media, it would have been ridiculed to death.
That of course has not happened. We are sonorously told we are a nation in crisis. Ordinary forms of democratic activity – free assembly, free speech and free voting – all threaten our society.
The cause of all of this political panic is of course the genocide in Gaza. It is essential to join the dots here. We live in a situation where the wealth gap in society between the rich and the poor is expanding at its fastest ever rate. Where for the first time in centuries, young adults can expect to have lower life expectations in terms of employment, education, health and housing than their parents. Where the nexus of control by the ultra-wealthy of both the political and media classes is tighter than ever.
Where the Overton Window has shrunk to a letterbox.
Briefly, the chance of the kind of democratic triumph of the working people of which George Galloway dreams, became real with the popular uprising that led to Jeremy Corbyn being placed as Labour leader. Corbyn’s chances were destroyed by an entirely fake narrative of anti-semitism. Since the Holocaust, anti-semitism has understandably been the most potent charge that can be levelled against anybody in politics. A deliberate and calculated campaign to apply the term to any criticism of Israel was ultimately successful in destroying Corbyn and his supporters as a short term threat.
So the demonisation of criticism of Israel was not an incidental ploy of the ruling class. It was the most important tool, by which they managed to kill off the most potent threat to their political hegemony to arise in a major western country for decades.
They succeeded because bluntly most people were not paying attention. Many ordinary people saw Israel as they had been taught to see Israel, as a victim nation and therefore criticism of it as generally reprehensible and plausibly anti-semitic. On top of which the defence of the idea of Israel allies with the Islamophobia which is closely correlated with the racism and anti-immigrant sentiment that remains a strong undercurrent in Western politics, and especially in England.
The Israeli genocide in Gaza has collapsed this narrative. Too many people have seen the truth on social media. Despite every attempt by the mainstream media to hide, obfuscate or distort, the truth is now out there. The reflex hurling by the Establishment of the “anti-semitic” slur at everybody who opposes the Genocide – from the United Nations, The International Court of Justice and the Pope down – has finally killed off the power of that slur.
A critical mass of ordinary people have even learnt of the history of the slow genocide of the Palestinians this last 75 years.
The political Establishment, having established support for Israel as the fundamental measure of political respectability which could neatly be used to exclude radicals from political discourse, have been unable to shift ground and drop it.
They are clinging to Israel, not because they have a genuine belief Israel is a force for good, not because they believe in religious Zionism, not even because they believe it is a necessary colonialist project in the Middle East, but because it has been for decades their totem, the very badge of political respectability, the membership card for the political country club.
Israel is now toxic to the public and the entire history of ethnic cleansing, massacre and long genocide on which the very existence of Israel is based, is now laid bare. The political class are now in a panic, and lashing out everywhere. Police powers to limit free assembly were already hugely increased just last year by the Public Order Act 2023, where any demonstration which is noisy or causes inconvenience can be banned. Now we have calls from the responsible ministers for pro-Palestinian demonstrations to be banned because they offend their sensibilities in a way they are finding difficult to define.
The proscribed organisation model is being considered now to limit freedom of speech and assembly. They are looking at banning the Muslim Council of Britain and Palestine Action. But you cannot ban an idea, and defining anyone who disagrees with you as an “extremist” is unlikely to stand up in the courts. Indeed anyone currently not being branded as an extremist ought to be deeply ashamed.
So far as I can see, only active supporters of genocide are not in the official view “extremists”. As all the main UK-wide political parties do support genocide, that of course makes sense.
It is worth noting that all the big attacks on liberty this last couple of years – including The Public Order Act, The National Security Act, and (in process) the Rwanda Safety Bill – have the support of Keir Starmer. I fully expect that whatever form the government move to make opposing genocide illegal finally takes, Keir Starmer will approve that too. Remember Starmer claimed that it is legal for Israel to starve Gaza.
Our hearts and minds remain with the people of Gaza. Their suffering and their heroism not only shines in itself, but it has cast a much needed light on the complete failure of the model of western democracy.
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An honest description of the present reality. Something it is impossible to find in mainstream media. Thank you.
It’s dishonest. Craig leaves off the socialist pension debts, the root cause of the mess.
“..socialist pension debts..”
Aden I would hardly call The Daily Mirror “socialist” while under the ownership of Robert Maxwell but you’re right 100’s of millions of pounds went missing from the Mirror Group pension fund. Presumably stolen by Robert Maxwell and as of yet unknown others. What a despicable man he must have been – to rob pensioners of their pensions.
The reason the pension pots are empty have nothing to do with socialism, it is because the banks and financial institutions were deregulated and the ensuing and completely unsurprisingly crash that resulted wiped them out… Why have people somehow forgotten this?
Dean, very true
it’s ideologically inconvenient to remember it.
Not to mention the vulture capitalists in charge having recently encouraged UK pension vehicles to invest in pump-and-dump shitcoin schemes…
will moon, very true, did he really fall off his boat and die?
“will moon, very true, did he really fall off his boat and die?”
And why did he receive an Israelli state funeral?
Within 24 hrs of his death, attended by all sorts of luminaries.
Onside, as it were.
I don’t know much about the Mirror pension theft. What has always amazed me is the rules that allow these thefts to take place ie there don’t seem to be any – if your pension falls under the control of crooks, you get robbed. The definition of crooks is not a legal one but a moral one and indeed these robberies, which often are involve huge sums of money take place and we find it them to be legal and the criminal or criminals are lauded by the global elite – as Johnny mentions , in Maxwell’s case burial in a unique, limited location whilst the deceased is loaded with state honours – for a mass mugger of pensioners?
As for the death on the boat – what can one say? One line of thought I read had Mossad involved in the pension fund thefts and needing to clean house. Maxwell had “belonged to intelligence” for fifty years or so, at least since WW2 when he operated in the Machiavellian hectatomb of the Balkans – spying and “intelligence” were particularly complicated in this theatre of war – at one point, mid-war there were fourteen armed factions mutually contesting the outcome!
In view of Maxwell’s history, I suspect he knew they would come and was waiting on the boat for his killers. I guess it is a “club” and when your time is up, you can’t escape – there is no where to run when those with the power to decide exercise that power. While he wouldn’t know the assassination squad, he would know who sent them socially and these “friends” would see he was treated with honour after death and his family taken care of. Is it an accident that the man’s two sons escaped conviction for financial crimes? Take a look at the allegations against his daughter in Florida. It was only mass outrage that got her a measly twenty year sentence, fifteen years after being accused of crimes that would get most people life without parole if convicted yet she received a de facto pardon – a non-prosecution agreement for massive child sex trafficking offences.
One has to wonder, doesn’t one?
He was israeli, his daughter too she of prince andrew scandal fame ghislaine maxwell and epstein, small world
Yes, extremely small if one “belongs to intelligence” lol
Craig’s Main Point here is Western – esp. UK – complicity in the Genocide … and George’s threat to that Evil…
There aren’t any pension debts; this generation of workers pay them to the retired people who paid for their schools, hospitals, roads, council houses, teachers, doctors, nurses, union agreements etc.
“There aren’t any pension debts”
The existence of a “state pension debt” is a handy myth for a certain type of Tory supporter, usually one who believes that NI contributions go into a pension fund.
Aden
I’m afraid that the Socialist pension Debts pale into insignificance after the Truss/Kwarteng Budget which led to 65 billion being handed over by us (socialists included) to Private Pension companies for the losses that followed that Epic Budget.
The BBC and The Bank of England Boss mentioned it – “Too Big To Fail” the Governor said, with a nostalgic tear in his eye.
It lasted about 30 seconds and was never mentioned again.
If you want more Too Big To Fail Nostalgia I’ll be happy to point you in the right direction.
Plus the tales of PPI and the “Epic!” Track-and-Trace wonder – which neither Tracked nor Traced and most certainly should have been prosecuted under the Trades Descriptions Act, as not being as “Epic!” as claimed.
One for Esther Rantzen, I think – or more a question for the Police, in my view, as criminal Fraud and deception.
And then you look at the minuscule level of (overestimated) benefits fraud used to justify the political choice of genocidal Austerity, whilst encouraging the huge level of (underestimated) tax avoidance and evasion, with the connivance of HMRC, for megacorps and HNWs.
“The idea that democracy – i.e. voting for somebody – is an attack on, err, democracy was so crazy that, had we any kind of independent media, it would have been ridiculed to death.”
Well, in 2001, when Hugo Chavez was re-elected president of Venezuela, Business Week magazine stated in one of their articles that “The Venezuelan people have, in effect, voted against democracy”.
For the ruling elite and the MSM, democracy has a totally different meaning from what we think it is. It has become an icon to be worshipped (in their pre-defined terms), and not the actual involvement in politics of ordinary citizens.
Paul, it’s the “will of the people”- but often only a selected few.
It’s wishful thinking. Not “we have a will” and that means is happy every after.
The OSM will eventually prevail. No doubt about it. It’s only a matter of time, but it’s already growing in many western nations.
I think Craig is correct when he says that the Gaza genocide has shifted Overton’s window amongst the western public. The notion that liberal democracy had some innate immunity to the repressive methods more associated with governments of the extreme right or left has been shredded. The louder the ruling elite proclaim our shared values and communities, the more nervously we await the midnight knock on the door.
The ruling class in any system will ruthlessly defend itself against the greatest threat of all: the people. The gap between rich and poor in any country can be seen in how militarised is the uniform of the police. Look at footage of policing even as late as during the Miners’ strike of 1984, and the difference is stark.
Funny you mention this David, I looked at some photos from 1976 of a protest march in the local area at an exhibition a while ago. The Police depicted seemed eminently approachable, it was a hot day and the divide between them and the crowd seemed blurry – no armour, no gear, no snatch vehicles, a lot of rozzers had their jackets off and smiled a lot though the marchers appeared animated and passionate. It was an anti-racism march organised by local activists against heavy-handed policing!
Also striking, which was present in every photo, was the lack of plastic anywhere – the photos showed the march-route of the demo, and there were clear views of houses, cars, shopfronts, peoples clothing, litter etc – no plastic – the images have stayed with me, even though I saw them ten years ago.
“ I’m a Barbie girl in the Barbie world
Life in plastic, it’s fantastic”
Quite.
“For the ruling elite and the MSM, democracy has a totally different meaning from what we think it is.”
We tend to think that it means what it says, rule by the people, but for the rulers it means ” a system by which the right people can be brought into the ruling elite”. A country is a “democracy” where the ruling oligarchs in that or another country are able to get their men and women into positions of power and it is an “autocracy” where they can’t.
But Boris has flown out to Venezuela to sort it all out. But forgot to tell anyone beforehand.
It’s an interesting thought experiment though:
If the public are told by *both* opposing candidates in very plain terms that specifically one of them will end democracy and the public vote for the one that will end democracy, they have voted to end democracy.
Is that democratic?
It depends on what you think is “democratic” A uniparty choice once every so often is not democratic by my lights – especially if the organising power spends it’s time destroying civil society, as we have seen in Britain since the advent of M Thatcher as Brit Prime Minister way back way – every year since then has seen the wealth extremists see the extremity of their wealth grow – the few enrich themselves at the expense of the many – year in, year out
In your example, it would be expected that “democracy” would perish by the hand of “democracy”. In such a system, we identify this as a feature not as a bug. You can learn the full details studying the Nazi takeover of Weimar – how it all works is, unusually, is explained by this one historical example.
The cause of all of this political panic is of course the genocide in Gaza.
================
No its not.
The cause of the mess is socialist pensions. You can’t afford the £600,000 share of those debts. You can’t afford the £60,000 year on year increase.
Socialists like yourself have looted the assets of the workers. Means of production owned by the masses? You stole it. You took trillions from the workers and spent it.
Now that debt falls due, and the ruling class knows what happens when it comes to those debts. They won’t be paid. With 40 million victims a lot will take direct action.
The only complaints normal people have about the UK state pension is how shockingly low it is compared to everywhere else in Europe and how much older you have to be to even get one.
Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth…
Aden. Are you a bot, or are you just not very well?
Do you sell private pensions by any chance? Can you hook me up? Because the socialist Britain you are taking about has me getting a pension – and 10 years after, I die.
Aden, get real
I did not know that Craig Murray stole trillions and spent it all. It’s crazy to think Mr. Murray was once a trillionaire, but now relies on £3 donations to keep this blog and the coverage he posts on it going.
Though honestly, I’m a little sceptical, are you sure it was trillions of pounds and not, say, Weimar marks or Zimbabwean dollars? That might explain the discrepancy if so, because the former wouldn’t have been legal tender today, and depending on the era the great Murray heist took place, if this was around, say, 2008 or 2009, the latter might’ve only been enough money to buy a few cups of coffee despite it seeming to be duffel bags of cash, or else not even that much if he actually only nicked a couple of trillion Z$ notes by when those were printed.
Thinking about it, are you sure this theft of trillions was not an honest mistake? If one travels frequently, it would be entirely possible to end up next to someone from Zimbabwe while cash is being exchanged, and one can imagine a situation where two notes are on a counter, and one accidentally takes the Z$100,000,000,000 rather than your own £5, then only realises it later and that you’re out a few quid without enough trillion dollar bills to cover your bus fare.
Whatever happened, I trust in how Craig Murray must’ve spent his trillions, since he’s honest and always done good work for regular people. He is like a modern Scottish John Dillinger, a folk hero of our time.
Seen online yesterday:
“It takes sleight of hand to steal a thousand. It takes a gang to steal a million. To steal a billion, you need a law. To steal a trillion, you need an ideology”.
I suspect this may well be an A.I bot , it certainly has the illiteracy of one ,and the incompetence of its grammatical phrasing is symptomatic of a novice programme learning contextual construction.
If not , then my apologies to the said ADEN , but I fear he or she is ill informed and ignorant as to the reality of just how UK state Pensions are financed.
PS hint,,,,, it is NOT by taxes ADEN , and the so called thieves you obsess about are most certainly not Socialists but Neoliberals whom have been in power for the last 40 odd years since Tha-twat-cher rose to power in 1979 I include BTW Blair’s Nu Labour .
1. All correct. I’d add another complimentary interpretation. The US was overtaken Economically by 2016 by China. It’s time is up, and it refuses to accept 2nd place so will end up destroying itself rather than admit to reality (which is why so much we are told is palpably wrong on everything).
UK and Europe will be dragged down after US – like the last carriages of a train going over a cliff Edge.
Israel is the first Carriage.
2. So far the Police have rightly not been difficult as far as I can see, despite the urging of Ministers. The Police themselves recognise peaceful protest – fewer arrests than Glastonbury as has been widely pointed out.
3. Yes, Keir Starmer – an establishment plant in the Labour party. Disgusting man.
As people so often do, you are confusing the USA as a nation, the American people, and the US government. I would reword your sentence as:
“The USA [the nation] was overtaken economically by 2016 by China. Its [the nation, the ruling elite and hence the government] time is up, and it [the elite and the government] refuses to accept 2nd place so will end up destroying itself [the nation] rather than admit to reality”.
For “the elite and the government” one can substitute “the elite” without any loss of meaning.
No, he is probably right.. What do you think will happen to the US (the people) when their government implodes. Civil war is never far away there and polls actually confirm the majority of US citizens think there will be one in their lifetime. The country barely functions as a modern democracy as is, I can’t see the collapse of the state helping matters (though in all likelihood, the arseholes will have dragged the whole world into a war before that happens anyway).
that doesn’t really address his point that the interests of the elite drive US foreign policy, not the interests of the highly propagandized populace.
“always refuses to let the media set the frame of discussion”
Galloway was the talk of politics after his Rochdale victory but was not invited onto any of the Sunday politics shows. They saw how he ruined that Sky interviewer and do not want the public to see that happen again. There is more chance of them inviting you on to talk about the Gaza genocide than the man who has just won an incredible victory on the basis of it.
fonso, very true, George Galloway is very clever but I’m in favour of Scottish independence, he is not. I remember when he was in Dundee, our home town. Well done to him; you can trust him but he does change his mind about who and what he supports, often.
I was so astonished by Rishi Sunak’s “healing speech” that I couldn’t find anything to say. That’s unusual.
I couldn’t work out which was more baffling: his warning that, as Mr Murray puts it, “democracy is an attack on democracy”; or his declaration that people with whom he disagrees “may not belong here”.
Actually I couldn’t find that bit in the transcript, although I heard it with my own ears. Maybe that’s the referent of the rubric “Please note political content redacted here”. (Where “political content” means “something so exceptionally over the top that it might cause Mr Sunak political trouble”).
Personally, I wonder whether Mr Sunak belongs here. He and his wife are Indian; and between them they are well on the way to being billionaires. Are those really the kind of people whom we want running the UK?
My objection is by no means racist. Mr Sunak’s own words make it perfectly clear that he is not attuned to traditional British values such as freedom of speech and the right to vote without fear or favour. But I cannot be sure whether that reflects his family’s traditional culture or the values of his very small, select globalist class. This recent article explains what I mean more clearly:
“America’s Super-Elite Disconnect”
by Simplicius The Thinker
https://darkfutura.substack.com/p/americas-super-elite-disconnect
He was born in Southampton and is as British as the despicable Lee Anderson. But he has shown clear signs of wanting to be an American.
(another unfortunately common British trait). British values are as British values do.
They walk amongst us but are not part of we.
The traditional lifestyles of many UK born Indians means that they actually don’t integrate with whitey. Look at Sunak’s family including his very rich wife and her family. These people don’t actually know about ‘british’ values or represent them in any way. They represent a rich, clique that looks after their own, and that’s not us. It’s a kind of brown, zionist, mafia.
And Galloway was voted in by the people, Sunak was put in place by bankers.
“…many UK born Indians means that they actually don’t integrate with whitey.”
Lots of whitey don’t integrate with whitey. I didn’t meet the people who lived along Mansfield’s millionaires row (Nottingham road) except for when my dad was doing some glazing for one of them. There was chintz furniture in the front room, something I’d only read about in novels. I have no obligation to integrate and no-one else does, it’s a racist red herring.
Racist bullshit.
I’d rather have a person of Indian-heritage, or Indian migrant for a neighbour than you, Stevie Boy.
NTB you fight the good fight but on this occasion I cannot agree wholeheartedly.
You see as a homeless person I would be happy if I could get somewhere to live, even if Stevie Boy lived next door. Sure the shared hallway would be very much a zone of quiet reflection but a studied distance between close neighbours can often be a good thing.
Of course if my putative future neighbours were other than racists that would be something more but I am getting ahead of myself
“Racist bullshit.”
Bollocks it is. It is not racist to point out the differences between different cultures. Are you trying to pretend that all cultures are exactly the same? Not integrating with other cultures is a feature of many cultures, in fact most of them. If this is something that most cultures share, which it is, how is it racist to point it out.
In this case, we are talking about high-caste Hindus. They consider themselves superior to all other Hindus, let alone casteless foreigners like ourselves. They are forbidden to integrate by their religion.
I agree with most of what you write. No one can say the bloke is not very clever and a good speaker. It is a serious pity his intelligence is severely brought into contempt by his belief that the UK is more desirable than our 4 countries standing up for themselves. Has he no belief in the English people? I find that contemptible. Does he want the westminster mob to dispense with Scotland’s oil wealth solely to investors in the City of London? It is a serious flaw in a extremely able politician mainly because the UK will always be able to be a major and malignant player on the world stage until this toxic union is destroyed.
Can’t you understand that it’s possible for reasonable people to have different views about some things?
AFAIK, Galloway is happy for Ireland to unite, so it would be three rather than four U.K. regions.
I imagine he sees the rest of the U.K. remaining united as a way of strengthening the working class (rather than see it divided along competing nationalist lines) as the title of his “British Workers Party” would imply.
He can be impressive, as seen during his evidence at the US Senate hearing on the Iraqi oil for food programme, but his unremittingly strident, aggressive, and shouty style probably repels as many people as it attracts, so he doesn’t always do himself any favours, which isn’t really a helpful tactic if you’re trying to consistently, rather than opportunistically, attract democratic support.
Personally I can take only so much of it, even though I agree with many things he has said.
George Galloway’s victory was an astonishing achievement.
He not only trounced the mainstream Parties, but he won more votes than the Labour candidate and the Tory candidate and the LibDem candidate combined.
It’s all the more remarkable when you take into account the fact that he’s not a Mancunian and he’s not a Muslim.
Public disgust at the Zionist genocide being perpetrated in Gaza is much deeper and more widespread than the MSM let on.
It will be very interesting to hear what George Galloway’s first pronouncement is in Westminster when he returns.
If he is allowed to make one. The basic rules of democracy (as for humanitarian and international law) no longer apply.
Here it is:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yBrGnMewXB4
Galloway’s Maiden Speech 2024
I note Tom Welsh’s comments on Sunak with interest. Is he (Sunak) detached from democratic traditions because he is a plutocrat, or because of his cultural origins?
Indians were brought over to the British East Africa so-called “Protectorate” in large numbers after 1895, for the usual British imperialist purposes; to assist in the colonisation and subduing of the indigenous people.
The “Protectorate” took over the assets and personnel of the Imperial British East Africa Company – hence its Indian orientation. Indians were used as imperialist agents of ‘civilisation’ and became involved in trade, business and subaltern administrative roles. Naturally, they largely regarded themselves as superior to the indigenous black populations (similar to the attitudes of Ulster planters with respect to the indigenous Irish) because that is how colonial settlement works. This is the kind of attitude that is transmitted down the generations and infects their descendants. We need not look far for this.
Unsurprisingly, other Conservatives of South Asian-via-Africa origin may hold similar race superiority attitudes, a matter which may baffle many of their constituents in Engerland, but which are tolerated – or even celebrated – by them because they play to their own prejudices – there being a clear hierarchy of racist sentiments.
For example, not entirely at random:
Priti Patel’s paternal grandparents emigrated from Gujarat, India, to Uganda, where they were shopkeepers in Kampala.
Suella Braverman’s parents were indians who migrated via Mauritius (her mother) and Kenya (her father) respectively. Her own prejudices, if they exist, are likely to have been further marinated by her marriage to Mr Braverman, whose family have business interests in Israel.
It may not seem entirely surprising, therefore, that all three of these Tory ministers (and ex-ministers) who have shown conspicuous contempt for brown and black-skinned migrants to the UK, including those fleeing persecution, have a heritage as the tools of British imperialism. All imperialism has racism at its root, and plunder as its goal.
Their vigorous support for the colonial settlement in Palestine, and their contempt for genuine democratic expression in the land to which their own parents or grandparents were economic migrants, is entirely of a piece with their own origin stories.
To answer the original point: Is Sunak detached from democratic traditions because he is a plutocrat, or because of his cultural origins? The above strongly suggests that his heritage plays a huge role, but his self-enrichment as a parasitic hedge-fund manager, augmented by his marriage to the daughter of a billionaire, will have strongly reinforced his undoubted feelings of exceptionalism and superiority.
All of that will help to explain his attitude as an entirely unelected prime minister (either by his party or the UK electorate) to a politician who was elected to his position by constituents he clearly holds in contempt.
Sorry. I failed to mention explicitly that Sunak’s parents were also of Indian via East-Africa origin of Hindu Punjabi descent.
I would like to add ingrained Islamophobia and Sinophobia to complete your great post.
Indeed so. And Islamophobia is a major driver for support of the Zionists in Palestine.
Perhaps you should read, for instance, Ibn Warraq’s book “Why I Am Not A Muslim”.
What it boils down to is that Islam, as unmistakably and unequivocally laid down in the Koran, is irreconcilably intolerant of all other religions and, especially, of atheism and agnosticism. The Koran lays down clearly that atheists must be killed unless they agree to convert to Islam immediately and unconditionally. Moreover the penalty for apostasy is death.
Nothing in the Bible or the other Jewish scriptures comes close. Judaism isn’t even particularly keen about making converts; on the contrary, its main thrust is to emphasise the superiority and exclusiveness of the Jews. Christianity, which was once very keen to “convert the heathen” or kill them, has become far more moderate in the past century or two.
To be a faithful Muslim in good standing, according to Ibn Warraq, it is necessary not only to carry out hundreds of obligatory rituals and duties, but to make every effort to convert infidels to Islam. If they cannot be converted, the Koran dictates killing or enslaving them – except for “people of the Book”, Jews and Christians, who are allowed (usually, in theory) to live in peace with the status of second-class citizens.
As with all religious beliefs, the original and unyielding doctrines of Islam are often softened and interpreted away – but the Koran is quite clear and unambiguous. Islam is not a religion that can ever coexist peacefully with other religions.
Incidentally, Ibn Warraq is a pseudonym. The author did not believe that he would be safe if his real identity was known.
Well Tom, All that may or may not be the case. I think all religions are essentially bollocks, and you should not extrapolate my support for them from a mere observation of the truth.
My present concern is the genocide in Gaza. I think it is clear that the support for that genocide by almost the entire political class and their cheerleaders in the media, whilst primarily motivated by elite economic and geopolitical interests in having a proxy in the oil-rich Middle-East, also has a large component of Islamophobia, and a residual cultural (post-Chistian) regard for Judaism, which it unfortunately conflates with Zionism.
The poor people of Gaza are not to blame for anything you ascribe (rightly or wrongly) to the textual content of the Quran.
According to Warraq – but anyone with more than a passing experience of Muslims knows that’s bs
That’s my experience too. I have received nothing but kindness and good nature from the Muslims I have had contact with. And in my professional and trade-union roles I have known and valued many fine Jewish people, particularly those who were Marxists.
Tom I watched a clip of a Christian preacher in America give a long sermon on “the Ultimate Fighting Jesus”, who was “definitely” white-skinned. Conquest he averred was “in the Bible”
Similarly I watched a clip of a Rabbi saying that the Torah commands “ to blot them out to the last man even infants”
Sorry what was your point concerning Islam?
@ John O’Dowd
Bilge, you aren’t inferring his mentality, you are exposing yours. Anyone can transcend their origins, that’s why homo sapiens is still here and the other human species aren’t. I suggest that you avoid facile generalisations and think more about free will.
Yeah, I guess you’re right. That’s why it has taken Sunak all day to ‘transcend his origins’ over Hester’s vile racist comments about black, socialist female MP Diane Abbott.
A damned slow transcender perhaps?
Hear, hear, Squeeth.
Something tells me there’s a rather stronger correlation between wealth and the leaders of supremacism, than between heritage and the leaders of supremacism.
“Is he (Sunak) detached from democratic traditions because he is a plutocrat, or because of his cultural origins?”
To make myself quite clear, I think “both”.
Brilliant, really brilliant. This text should be framed and hung on every public wall.
Yip those that support the genocide in Gaza want to shut us up, and if they can’t do that initially via the police then they create laws to make sure that we are shut up, but even then they can’t really shut us up, we won’t shut up on the ongoing genocide in Gaza by the Zionists and their backers such as the US/UK governments.
As for Galloway I admire his stance of Gaza, as I admired his stance on Iraq, and his masterpiece when he took on the Americans in a hearing and left them looking stupid, however Galloway advocates independence for every bloody group of people he sees as oppressed around the globe, but he staunchly opposes Scotland dissolving the union, Galloway is indeed British.
RepublicofScotland, i agree
Last time I looked the people of Scotland were not particularly sold on the idea of independence. Maybe Galloway is just representing reality ?
And yet the % of those against Independence is lower than in 2014…
https://www.politics.co.uk/reference/scottish-independence-polls/
Stevie Boy.
Scots voted yes to independence in 2014.
Republicofscotland, I was convinced “Scots voted yes to independence in 2014” I watched the entire thing including the count which was clearly bent, not that I was particularly interested in the result, but whether or not it was legitimate. Now almost all elections in The UK and USA are bent, using various methods. Postal voting makes it incredibly easy. Strangely enough I thought the Rochdale Election was probably legit, cos people in Rochdale aren’t daft. I went to school with them.
There’s also not enough prison space…which makes you wonder in which sinister way they intend to (permanently?) shut us up…
Thx for the parts on Galloway and British democratic traditions.
More on the subject would be interesting to outsiders like me – true insight into “British democratic traditions” beyond what textbook knowledge and op-ed pieces by privileged senior editors or Capitol-Hill style foreign correspondents convey. Which are fabrications 90%.
p.s. Gaza: It is shameful to realize that in German media there is almost no news report on the UN investigation into possibe torture of UNRWA-employees to extort from them those shameful Oct.7 fabrications.
(Frankly if they had been involved I would have no problem with that. But that´s another topic.)
I found only 1 online source quoting the REUTERS/MSN report (anything else out there?) which manages to quote REUTERS without using the German word of “Folter” – torture. Instead it´s “coercion”.
It is true however that the silent majority of people have eyes to see and read and do process these events.
It all might have repercussions of the sorts which Moon of Alabama pointed at yesterday quoting the FINANCIAL TIMES, saying that non-white voters might abandon the Democrats.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/03/why-non-white-voters-are-moving-away-from-democrats.html#more
Doesn’t that just show how through the looking glass we are…non-white voters might instead vote for an orange, Nazi-admiring, KKK-wannabe.
Hi Craig
You are a very busy man and I hesitate to take up your time but I am the founder of the OCISA organisation which seeks to put Andrew Feinstein up against Kier Starmer in Holborn St Pancras at the next general election. The reasons for this are mainly outlined in your blogs and I confirm that I agree with nearly all your views. I also appreciate the sacrifice you made for us in serving time.
I have been putting forward a view which you may agree with as to the applicability of international laws concerning the current genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank which you may agree with and would seek to confirm your position; so below I have cut and pasted a posting I have made on the internet regarding the liability of our politicians in UK law for (their inchoate support of) breaches of international law in the form of the Genocide Convention, the Geneva Conventions and protocols and the Rome Statute. I would seek to put these views to senior lawyers in the UK to suggest courses of action for enforcement. Your input would be appreciated. As you may glean, I am a lawyer, but we need all the allies we can get as lives are at stake.
Yours, Jim Breese.
Politicians must now be aware of the provisions of the Rome Statute https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/RS-Eng.pdf which makes it encumbant upon national jurisdictions to ensure that the provisions against aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring for a crime under the statute (including Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, Aparthied and other crimes against humanity). Given that Israel has ignored the ruling of the ICJ (a different court, I know) that there is plausible evidence that a genocide is taking place, any politician in the UK is liable to arrest under the Rome Statute for encouragement of this genocide https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/assets/files/other/irrc_864_timmermann.pdf – particularly if they are part of an executive which allows the supply of weapons to be used in the genocide, Where the members of parliament are deflecting from their responsibility to take steps to prevent the genocide by indicating that legitimate pressure upon them to act is illegal (in this case directing the public to think that this is a Muslim plot) they themselves are inciting the genocide. They (the members of parliament) should be arrested immediately. That is why they should be worried.
Hi Jim, you are right, but the ICC will probably never do anything, and certainly not before a substantive ICJ decision on genocide which is probably three years away.
But more practically, aiding and abetting a genocide is illegal in the law of England and Wales. See here:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/01/sunak-cleverly-and-shapps-could-be-in-the-old-bailey-dock-for-genocide/
A prediction:- The people of Rochdale have had their protest vote and Galloway will be voted out at the next election as he was from the previous two constituencies he took. No doubt local Labour party activists are already working on it.
Pears Morgaine, i think you may well be right but George Galloway is clever, picks his moments and this is a biggie, a turning point is being approached where the world in 2014 will have mass elections which will tell us which direction we go in. George Galloway is on the same side as I am in terms of Israel, Gaza, Palestine, middle east; but I want Scottish independence, he doesnt. I look forward to his assault on Westminster’s cosy Israeli hornets’ nest.
Britain desperately needs one more genocide supporter and NHS privatiser in Parliament. Let’s pray Rochdale provides us with another one at the next election. It would be cause for great celebration in the middle of a genocide and with the NHS in tatters.
The notion of a Labour Party “activist” is risible, as the Party’s position is passive acceptance of Tory policies.
Bramble it may be a synonym for the term “trougher” which Mr Murray has mentioned on this blog previously
If we wished a more totalitarian, Soviet even, lexicon, we could call them “troughists” following the fashion, tankists ie tank operators, or Chekists ie members of the Secret Services
Starmer’s Labour Party has the look of Brezhnev’s Supreme Soviet Praesidium or whatever it was called – a living fossil hellbent on self-destruction.
They are clinging to Israel, not because they have a genuine belief Israel is a force for good, not because they believe in religious Zionism, not even because they believe it is a necessary colonialist project in the Middle East, but because it has been for decades their totem, the very badge of political respectability, the membership card for the political country club.
The western pro-israelism is some type of perverse virtue-signaling, a passport to be “respected” in the west. Almost like a religion in itself.
I have come to judge people on this very principle, if people are pro-israel, they often have other abhorrent political/ideological views. It is actually quite scientific, try it yourself.
–
I remember becoming aware of Galloway in the second iraqi war in 2003, what struck me was that he is fearless, a good rhetorican, well-read with and with lots of sardonic and witty humour on top of it and I have since back then enjoyed him even though I have not followed him as such. A good man.
What is so pathetic with these western israeli apologists that defend Israel and shame, slam, slander Galloway and others is that Israel could not give F about the west interests in return. Netanyahu now insinuate that Biden is some kind of antisemite! That is the gratitude Israel show when US have bent backwards to support their genocide:
Netanyahu says Biden has ‘issues’ with all Israelis, not him personally
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240312-netanyahu-says-biden-has-issues-with-all-israelis-not-him-personally/
Netanyahu’s western backers let him play them for fools
https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/comment/2024/01/24/netanyahus-western-backers-let-him-play-them-for-fools/
According to the nationalists ruling Israel, they cheer with joy that europe will face more muslim immigration – meanwhile the stupid right-wingers back Israel to the fullest apparently having no idea that the people Israel cleanse will go to europe, video below:
https://twitter.com/BrinkandHoff23/status/1765763381833916690
There’s no problem with movement of Muslims to Europe, unless you’re racist.
No there isn’t – but there is a critical problem with housing and several other under-invested social functions which suggests to me that the immigration issue is real. Before the increased immigration, rent was affordable etc etc. What is taking place is social engineering
What about the “intelligence” services taking down the people traffickers- nah they are needed to infiltrate harmless civil groups and sire children with peace campaigners ( frankly Mr Starmer one of your very best) or to train Slavs to assassinate other Slavs to the high standard of MI6. What about the Royal Navy taking command of the situation around our coasts – nah they are needed to noise up Russia or Iran or China or someone f8cking thousands of miles away
Most of my life my neighbours have been immigrants, generally non-white, Muslims, Christian’s, Sikhs or whatever – it is not about any of these things – it is about OUR communities until that is sorted we’ll go from pillar to post just coz some rich bastards can make more money – that’s it.
“Before the increased immigration, rent was affordable etc etc. What is taking place is social engineering”
There were no nuclear bombs before women got the vote. It is a mistake to confuse correlation with causality. Immigration has nothing to do with rents, which are entirely controlled by earnings.
No, I actually used to pay 30 quid a week to live in a slum house in 2003 in a small street with no other residents – all other houses boarded up. Now that street has been “redeveloped” and to rent a unit there is 200 quid plus a week (for a 1-bedroom flat) except I can’t because it is completely full; about half the residents are immigrants with a very poor command of English, and the rest are families. There are no boarded-up properties here anymore – not one. I have been on a housing list for a long time, several years – it was hinted at my last meeting with the housing office that I might have to wait another ten years before I am offered a property, unless I am willing to take a property were there are anti-social behaviour issues – drugs, gangs, violence, in which case I might be lucky and get one of these in 30 months or so. In 2003 people round here were waited 6 to (in extreme cases) 18 months. I don’t know where you live but here about 5 to 10 thousand people have settled locally in the last couple of years. I am surrounded by them, but most seem good people who speak little English but are warm, very appreciative and appear keen to make their new lives. I have found a couple of friends amongst the settlers, both people of high intelligence and highly developed social skills, but I find myself wondering, are not these talents not missed in their destabilised or war-torn homelands?
“Economics” is a racket and I am wary as regards economic theories, after “Too Big To Fail” the best I can do is this.
If there had been no massive immigration in my community, I would be living in a quiet area of a city shrinking slowly, paying 30 quid a week to rent a large house with half its roof missing but with 4 large useable rooms, like I did in 2003 – and I could have chosen from many just as cheap rentals, some with a roof. I looked at over a dozen before choosing a broken-down mansion. I can’t get anything at all at the moment – there is no room at the inn, unless I wish to go much further afield than my local area. It is an area that has over the last 20 years that has experienced extremely heavy immigration, many ten of thousands of people have settled here. There is a mile long market street near me; if one walks its length one might hear a hundred languages on a busy day. In 2000 it was 80% white Brit and 20% black Brit (Afro-Caribbean) with a tiny smattering of Yemenis. The destruction of the working class, I would think.
What was it that Blair said? Oh yes: “we are all middle class now” –
“If there had been no massive immigration in my community, I would be living in a quiet area of a city shrinking slowly, paying 30 quid a week to rent a large house with half its roof missing but with 4 large useable rooms, like I did in 2003”
That is very unlikely. It is much more likely that the two things both spring from the same cause, not one causing the other. The rents have gone up for the same reason as the immigrants have arrived: employment. The rents take into account what the employed can afford to pay and the immigrants are there to do the work. Unless, that is, that the immigrants are all unemployed and the state is paying their rents, but, in this case how are they any different from unemployed natives, who would have had exactly the same effect? The problem then sprigs from the paying of rents by the state rather than having council houses, which is nothing to do with immigration.
So go on tell me again
Many millions of people settle in a country so there is no spare housing stock
Those many millions don’t settle in a country there is spare housing everywhere.
If the economic theory of supply and demand is true that would indicate that when are there are many empty units rent prices would be lower than if every available unit was completely rammed with people, when would one expect rents to be at a premium
What am I not getting Bayard?
I take you either don’t live in Britain or you live in a constituency where immigration is light?
“What am I not getting Bayard?”
What you are not getting is that land prices (and hence house prices and rents) are not governed by supply and demand. This becomes obvious when you look at house prices during the C20th. The times of greatest supply has always been accompanied by rising, not falling prices. The huge oversupply experienced by Spain and Ireland in the early C20th was also not accompanied by falling prices. Rents and hence land prices are determined by what people can afford to pay. No matter how badly someone wants somewhere to live, they cannot pay more than they can afford. Flooding the country with penniless immigrants is not going to put rents up, because they can’t even afford them before they go up, let alone after they have gone up. Admittedly, one would expect that rents and prices would come down if there was an oversupply, but in practice, you don’t see this. What we see is houses simply remaining empty. Also look up Ricardo’s Law of Rents.
In addition, there is huge suppressed supply of houses in this country. Supply and demand does work, but very locally. People who want to live in town X are not going to be affected by what the supply of houses is in town Y. However, housebuilders are wise to this and, generally, don’t let the supply increase to the point where prices are depressed. Most of them are sitting on huge land banks on which they have planning, but have not yet built. Thus, if demand increases, supply can be increased to meet it without reducing prices.
What about this, if this city wasn’t settling tens of thousand of immigrants continuously, I would be able to find somewhere to live. There are no spare units. The cities housing stock is completely overwhelmed, full up. The arrival of so many migrants has affected my chances of finding a dwelling.
BTW mysterious banner posters were put up here recently advertising “Resilient Cities” a scheme by the Rockefeller foundation. When I looked up the website, it seemed to be speaking about trebling the populations of the cities who were members of the scheme immediately due to an “unspecified crisis”. Members cities got little packs of cash,maybe a half a million from the Rock Foundation. Whether it is nonsense or there is more to I don’t know, have you heard about it?
” The cities housing stock is completely overwhelmed, full up. ”
I would be very surprised if that were the case. Are you really saying that there is not a single estate agent in the city that has houses for sale or for rent on their books?
Continuous austerity leads to drastically reduced availability of public resources, especially at the lower margins, whether that’s housing, school places, transport, health and social care, regular employment, etc.
Is it any wonder that those affected have to compete amongst themselves for what little remains, and that resentment is likely to arise amongst certain cohorts as a result?
But then, for neoliberal govts, that’s a feature, not a bug.
(Which is why understanding MMT – the austerity killer – is so important.)
Personally I feel no resentment to anyone apart from what Adam Smith called “ the masters of mankind” or as I call them “the gigapeds”, even when I see public housing given to people who just got off the plane. I am not a “hater”, and what is done is done.
About five year ago a little public housing renovation of small terraced houses about a 100 years old, near me with maybe 80 units have been given in large part to some new arrivals – of the few I have to spoke to, it has been in “pidgin” with demonstrative gestures I take it they are the families of people who did minimum wage jobs in West Asia for the Coalition Forces, when they commenced and prosecuted their attack on the region – admin officers , door security, etc They are not protected, like maybe interpreters or guides and their families who were involved with the military side of this continental attack or like “spy” like Sergei Skripal lol.
I live in a rough urban ghetto that has many problems so I conclude they were low value workers. They don’t seem in any way well-off – tiny cars, local schools, no privilege. I remind that apart from that last statement the above is pure speculation but there is a homogeneity to their collective appearance which leads to me intuit that they knew each other before this resettlement which has been organised by public and private bodies – they are all families and though I have only met a few very briefly, they are an impressive group in a very “ordinary” sense, showing much of the working class decency of the working class who were destroyed by Thatcher and Blair whom they have replaced – made me think poor people are the same all over the world.
It seems unfair that some people don’t have to wait in line but such is life – I assume this based on their poor English when they moved in – they had not been in the country for long. I note five years later their English is good These settlers seem model citizens, quiet, polite moderately religious, spending most of their time indoors etc.
Even if I am wrong about these people, the Security State has to accommodate and resettle large numbers of workers who service their highly technical assaults on various the “imperfect” countries that form the target for this ruinous financially driven warfare – with every merchant of death able to wet their beak in the flow of blood soaked profits. Yet the idea of building public housing is literal anathema to the wealth extremists who set policy for western polity
I can’t believe you would commit this to print, ‘I have to confess I have never shared the romantic view of the working classes, and have always found them in reality more likely to follow the doctrines of Nigel Farage than those of John MacLean.’ What a disappointment.
You seem to be suggesting he is self-evidently wrong. Why not offer some evidence rather than expressing disbelief and disappointment?
Despite fifty years of intensified class war, the bulk of the working class has retained its decency, unlike the middle and boss classes which never had any, apart from a few honourable exceptions. I doubt that Hull, where I’ve lived for thirty years, is anything special in that regard.
The strongest correlations with being in favour of a supremacist Brexit are poor quality education, lower socio-economic status, old age and racism. Because of the way the elites have structured the economy, people in those groups are more likely to have been working class.
Thankfully, the working class are redeeming themselves through realising what a mistake Brexit was…but ~11 – 13% of the population seemingly in support of the commercial organisation ReformUK are definitely not redeeming themselves.
Yes it would be interesting to know who funds this “Reform UK” vehicle – it seems to serve the same function as Hugenberg’s DVP did in Weimar – appealing to a very similar electorate, all things being equal.
At these moments, the fragmentation of differing blocks of voters demonstrates how the Nazi’s did for Weimar with only 37.3% of the popular vote and of course some help from international capital. This from the Manchester Guardian in 1934:
“Hitler had large funds at his disposal, not obtained entirely from German sources. He got the money from certain capitalist interests in foreign countries, who were attracted by his hostility to Soviet Russia, or by his policy to increase demands for armaments…”
On Jan 30 1934 Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor. His cabinet contained only two Nazis – Frick and Goring – the rest were trad members of the German elite. Only six months went by and the Governor of the Bank Of England, Montagu Norman vouched publicly for the first issue of Nazi debentures to be sold to investors in London. That is how the trick is done.
Nowadays it’s important to express emotions – rational argument is so Victorian.
To be fair, both are important and some emotional responses are indeed rational.
without emotion rationality is pointless
You should have told this to the AI pioneers, you would have saved them ten years in R&D and gazillions in research costs
Maybe we could go further and say without emotion there is no rationality?
Richard Flett, a disappointing view of the world. A better tried and tested view is that you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. The working class are often fooled and follow the wrong leaders when the corruption of the media bombards them with false hopes and promises, but deep down it is the John Maclean they are looking for, always.
Sir, there’s no print involved. Far too expensive, and not very fruitful
James Connolly said, “History, in general, treats the working class as the manipulator of politics treats the working man – that is to say, with contempt when he remained passive, and with derision, hatred and misrepresentation whenever he dares evince a desire to throw off the yoke of political or social servitude.”
https://youtu.be/N0CsuEJlx3w?si=PLUVr4f6jMpoD6e8
As this short video shows, and accessible on the largest public video outlet in the world, the OSM has a voice to be heard.
It will prevail, sooner or later
Melrose, corporation control of the media in UK is complete. Every TV station, every radio station and all the newspapers are fed their version of events and version of news by the same news agencies. Switch your TV on and get a couple of radios, switch them on too and you will see that they broadcast word-for-word the same news reports. What we need is a checking process. We have all been fed the lie that news has to be issued as soon as it’s known; so with great speed it is issued, but they use the speed of issue as an excuse for errors which in reality are not errors: they are lies.
Yesterday’s news presented factually, for the people, is better than today’s news, full of lies.
Thanks for stating the very obvious.
What I was trying to say is that we all have alternate sources of information, now labeled OSM, that can gradually offset the corporate MSM.
Oh aye, fkn Bernie ‘there is no genocide’ Sanders … A wretch who insists Genocide Joe is a good man and who AIPAC singles out for praise during a zionist genocide. He already has prevailed.
https://twitter.com/AIPAC/status/1733897185228394770
Craig wrote:
– The political Establishment, having established support for Israel as the fundamental measure of political respectability which could neatly be used to exclude radicals from political discourse, have been unable to shift ground and drop it.
– They are clinging to Israel, not because they have a genuine belief Israel is a force for good, not because they believe in religious Zionism, not even because they believe it is a necessary colonialist project in the Middle East, but because it has been for decades their totem, the very badge of political respectability, the membership card for the political country club.
Yes, this explains a lot. Unconditional support for Israel has been the Establishment’s shibboleth, the key attitude that when expressed assures the Powers That Be that whatever else that person may have said about any other matter, conscience had nothing to do with it. The supporter of Israel can be trusted to support any oppression, exploitation and subjugation, up to and including that inflicted for decades upon the people of Gaza. They thereby advertise their conviction that wealth makes might and might makes right, thus marking themselves out as suitable for membership of the Establishment club.
” Unconditional support for Israel has been the Establishment’s shibboleth,”
Indeed it has, in the truest sense of the word. How suitable, then, that the word itself is from Hebrew.
A few years ago an American lady on Mull explained to me that “Friends of Israel” in the USA are a powerful lobby and carry a lot of votes in US elections.
She said that they believe that there will be a Second Coming and that, according to scripture, it will happen in Israel. They believe that if there is no Israel then Christ will not return.
It seemed to me a little far fetched at the time but, as the lady was clearly highly educated I had to give it credence. Not that my credence would be of interest to anyone but me.
Over the years since I have found it more and more believable.
James Robb, over the years you have lost your sensibility; there will be no second coming of the lord or jesus. There was no first coming: it was all a con trick. There were no miracles. You cannot feed five thousand with a loaf of bread, not even if you are a man called jesus. Be a good person, don’t hurt others, be kind. From there you won’t go far wrong.
One more thing: don’t believe American ladies spreading lies about people returning from the dead after being dead for two thousand years.
Or returning to “the land that God gave them” after two thousand years.
Highly educated? Like what? Did she pass all her O levels?
Melrose, I too find it surprising. But it seems to me that education and “faith” have always been orthogonal. Neither of them seems to affect the other in the least degree.
I always find it odd that such people are so interested in Christ and hopeful of his return, when they seem to have not the slightest interest in anything he said or did. I am reminded of Michael Foley’s words in his book “The Age of Absurdity”:
“In the Irish Catholic culture I knew as a boy, the faithful – both clerical and lay – violated the principles of the New Testament so comprehensively and precisely that it almost seemed as though they had read it”.
To claim that anyone who opposes the policies or acts of the Israeli government is necessarily anti-semitic is deeply dishonest. I dare say some are, some aren’t.
But then again no doubt some people who oppose terrorism are falsely described as Islamophobic. There’s plenty of lying to go round.
dearieme, are you conflating israeli government policies or acts with terrorism?
terence…Elaborate ..Please
With maybe?
Another Ouzo and things will become clear here.
The actions of the Zionist State terrorists are indeed terrorism. Zionist State invented modern Terrorism.
Read their words for your self
https://merip.org/1988/05/shamir-on-terrorism-1943/
or perhaps Mi5’s assessment “The Security Service’s main concern in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War was not, as often supposed, the looming Cold War with the Soviet Union but the threat from Middle Eastern terrorism during the final years of the Palestine mandate, which had been conferred on Britain by the League of Nations in 1922. The terrorists came not, as later in the twentieth century, from Palestinian or Islamist groups but from the Zionist extremists of the Irgun and the Stern Gang, who believed that the creation of an independent Jewish state required and legitimated the use of terror against the British administration.
MI5 reported to Attlee that Irgun and the Stern Gang were planning a series of attacks in Britain, including a plot to assassinate the Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin. Most of the plots failed as a result of successful MI5 surveillance and the lack of support for terrorism among the great majority of British Zionists. MI5 failed, however, to prevent a bomb being planted by the Stern Gang in the Colonial Office building (now used by the Foreign Office) on Whitehall in 1947. The bomb, however, did not detonate because of the failure of the timer. ”
https://www.mi5.gov.uk/the-british-empire-and-commonwealth
It’s like trying to claim that criticism of the Tory Government is Anglophobic…
Criticism of the Tory government is extremism.
You’re right about the working class being more likely to follow the likes of Farage, but there are reasons for that, which I’m sure there wasn’t space to go into outside of your main reasons for this post. One of these is that there are very few working class voices of the actual left that can be heard, or that are given any sort of platform. Mick Lynch is great, but he’s no Arthur Scargill, much less a Keir Hardie. One ray of hope is former banker/trader Gary Stevenson, and if you don’t know him, you really should check him out.
On the matter of Israel, I think you’re right when you call it a totem, and much as when someone intelligently criticises capitalism and is either no-platformed or shouted down, the same is true of criticism of Israel. But it’s more than totemic – it’s fundamental.
On both these points I think we have to look to the unholy Thatcher-Reagan years: she for starting the continuning ruinous attacks on the state and the left, and he for allowing millenarial Christianity to exert its apparently inexorable influence on US politics, bequeathing us a world in which the powerful believe poverty is a personal failing, while possessing a foothold in a land where God’s troops may gather for the upcoming Armageddon.
If the working class is more likely to support Farridge, why don’t we vote for him?
“Corbyn’s chances were destroyed by an entirely fake narrative of anti-semitism.”
No Craig, Corbyn’s chances were destroyed by his pusillanimity. I told you so.
Rubbish, if he was a weak, coward he would take the easy route, like most politicians. He never has. His major mistake, IMO, is that he always assumes the best of others. And, most people in politics are total bastards. Israel, USA and the establishment done for Corbyn
A few days after he got the gig he went to a state function, didn’t have a tie on and didn’t sing the old national anthem. He was criticised in the press and apologised, I wrote him off in an instant. I was right and I told everyone that I’d tell them that I told them so. His tenure was nothing more than capitulation, the betrayal of his allies and his selling out of the working class (come to think of it that’s the definition of a Liarbour Partei leader).
Yeah, yeah. He should have told them to get fucked, and then he would have become Prime Minister.
Here’s news for you, chief. That sort of thing works for Establishment stooges. It doesn’t work if you’re not serving their interests.
Good grief, haven’t you been hanging out on this blog long enough to have figured out some absolute basics like this?
Squeeth genuinely believes George Galloway would have cowed the establishment and been allowed to rule the UK in the interests of the working class and Palestine.
glenn_nl: [Corbyn] should have told them to get fucked, and then he would have become Prime Minister.
Instead he accepted their calumny at face value, and then co-signed it by apologising. And how successful was that, glenn? In what universe was that ever going to succeed?
glenn_nl: That sort of thing [contesting calumnies flung at you in bad faith by opponents] works for Establishment stooges. It doesn’t work if you’re not serving their interests.
You are welcome to believe this if you like, but unfortunately Corbyn did not perform the experiment that might have put this hypothesis of yours to the test.
On the other hand, George Galloway just did. And he won by a mile.
How does Galloway’s success comport with your hypothesis of despair, glenn?
Presumably you and I agree on this much: The Establishment has an Augean stable full of bad-faith shit ready to launch, and owns the media platforms lock stock and barrel.
If you are going to contest an election, then you need to own your platform, and defend against your adversary’s attempts to besmirch it. The more they befoul your standard, the more proudly you must brandish it.
This is elementary. And if you cannot do this, then don’t enter the ring in the first place.
If someone has truly lost so much faith in the electoral system that he believes it only “works for Establishment stooges”, then I question why such a person would participate in an election at all. There are reasons, but the ones I can imagine are not wholesome.
glenn_nl: […] haven’t you been hanging out on this blog long enough to have figured out some absolute basics like this?
On the whole, the brutal facts presented here (together with our honorable host’s candid interpretations) are indeed sobering and paint a bleak picture overall.
But “roll over and die” is not, I don’t think, an “absolute basic” conclusion. Despair is entirely understandable, but other reactions are conceivable.
S:”I told you so.”
Oh, you ‘told’ him, did you?
What arrogant BS is this? Proof by repeated assertion, or proof by prior asserion – perhaps your logic is too advanced for me.
Corbyn couldn’t have put his trousers on one leg at a time without being denounced by the press as proving himself to be utterly dispicable by very dint of such behaviour. Fighting back against this would prove what an angry, belligerent monstrosity he was.
Are you seriously this naïve? Obama apparently went ‘street’ when he dared to respond to a particularly vicious jibe. Do you actually think that by responding more angrily, Corbyn would be an Establishment-accepted Prime Minister right now? Seriously?
Squeeth, you need to get real once in a while.
Glenn_nl – I agree that they would have scuppered him whatever happened, but I think he should have fired some of the asses who were openly plotting against him, mass deselection, kick up a shit storm…but I think maybe he is just too nice/civilized to be involved with those parasites in the first place.
(I remember the a*sehole McTernan live in the studio, while Corbyn was addressing conference behind on a big screen, telling the audience that he (Corbyn) wasn’t fit to lead the Labour party).
James I seen another with some Party official addressing a small crowd in front of a hospital entrance and the Labour apparatchik who thought Corbyn’s visit was cancelled, started slagging him off – he got a couple of sentences out and Corbyn’s “BattleBus” pulled up to the kerb about three feet from the Labour guy backstabbing him, Corbyn descended from the bus and took one look at the scene greeted the lowlife easily, then he turned to address the crowd and the fellow slunk away
Craig Murray
To be honest Craig, I’m finding it hard to swallow what you’ve written about democracy, when you are a member of the Alba Party whose leader, Alex Salmond, decided he’d cancel the result of the Office Bearer election and re-run the election (when it was not within his constitutional power to do so).
Then Alba had the NEC Ordinary Member election, where the election figures were kept secret, with the backing of Alex Salmond, despite complaints made by a candidate, that the vote was rigged.
Alex Salmond’s reasons for keeping the vote secret: a low vote might embarrass some of the candidates and they never sought consent to publish the result.
Imagine a world where we keep voting results secret because a candidate might not like the number of votes they got. Labour and Tories would have loved to have been able to do that in the Rochdale by-election.
It is obvious no other consent was needed by the Alba Party to publish their NEC internal voting results, as it’s normal and expected that voting results are published in politics and so was already covered by the Alba Party’s privacy policy.
The only comment I’ve saw you make, is that FUTURE votes should be One Member One Vote. Sorry, Craig. That’s not good enough.
Until I see you condemn the secrecy and the unconstitutional anti-democratic actions of Alex Salmond, I will find it hard to see past what appears to be hypocrisy or double standards, in that you rightly condemn others’ anti-democratic behaviour but you appear to be turning a blind eye to your friend Alex Salmond’s and your Alba Party’s opaque anti-democratic actions.
I’m really disappointed in you, Craig.
I’m Doubling my Subscription to Craig..Thanks to you
Doubled. Is that all? I thought a tripled or quadrupled subscription if you really want to make a point.
Really? If I had your convictions, I would have set myself on fire in front of the Scottish assembly to make your point. Why haven’t you done so?
What happened to the 650k of Indy supporting members? Where you a partial in the SNP hiding it?
Sadly this money has been stolen/misappropriated/hidden in RV salesman/ backyard / or, looking at the lack of political police enthusiasm to find it and prosecute whoever squirreled it away, been used on lavish parties?
Have you raised your Alba anger with Alex Salmond?
If not, why are you splurging Craigs blog with your bile?
Kind of hard to follow your logic, Colin.
If you don’t agree with something someone did or said in the past, then whatever they’re saying now cannot possibly be true.
Indeed, if they supported a party which did something you don’t approve of, then anything else they say in the future simply must be false.
Even if they point to the sun directly above them in the sky, and suggest it might be around midday. It simply has to be wrong, and we should conclude it is actually nighttime. After all, Alex Salmond said…. etc. Hence nighttime, despite the midday sun.
I take it logic isn’t your strongest point?
My criticism of Craig Murray is very specific. I never said nor implied that anything Craig Murray said in this article is untrue because I feel he should have said more to defend democracy in the Alba Party.
Craig is right when he condems the slaughter in Gaza or the erosion of democracy and freedoms in the West. I hope people will continue to support him over this and other issues, such as the campaign to free Julian Assange.
Likewise George Galloway is right when he condems the human rights abuses against Palestinians and condemns British imperialism but, as others have highlighted, George Galloway supported British imperialism when it came to Scotland’s freedom.
Colin,
While I am a member of the Alba Party as the only party with (inherited) MPs and MSPs serious about Scottish Independence, it remains a very small party that has never got a vote in an election higher than I have achieved as an Independent in parliamentary elections.
Something plainly went wrong in its executive elections. But the idea that an internal election among 200 voters for a minor party position, in a party nobody votes for, amounts to a whole hill of beans is nonsense. It is a very new party with teething troubles. As I have suggested, the solution is to make future elections one man one vote for all members and be sure this does not happen again.
During Starmers interview with Nick Ferarri of NBC news [see Craigs link] Ferrari asked Starmer whether he agreed with the Israeli Defence Minister when he said “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza strip, there will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed. Ferarri asked Starmer ” A siege is appropriate, cutting off power, cutting off water”? To which Starmer replied I think Israel must have, does have that right. it is an ongoing situation.
This is a clear call to Genocide, Starmer realizing he had just justified collective punishment tried to placate the understandable universal reaction of revulsion and resignations from many Labour councillors, came up with the following lies….
This is what he said “Let me be clear about what I said, and what I wasn’t saying. I was saying Israel had a right to self defence when I said ‘that right’ it was that right to self defence. I was not saying Israel had the right to cut off water, food, fuel or medicines, on the contrary. Unfortunately video evidence is available and everybody saw his lips move. What a disgusting human being this Zionist apoligist is. people will never forgive him.
“They are clinging to Israel, not because they have a genuine belief Israel is a force for good, not because they believe in religious Zionism, not even because they believe it is a necessary colonialist project in the Middle East, but because it has been for decades their totem, the very badge of political respectability, the membership card for the political country club”.
As true a statement that I have read for a long time as is the last paragraph, which is why these political parasites should be held with the utmost contempt (including as a result of my correspondence with him my own Tory MP).
Beg me pardon,
I go much deeper:-
” Our hearts and minds remain with the people of Gaza. Their suffering and their heroism not only shines in itself, but it has cast a much needed light on the complete failure of the model of western democracy.”
For years I have been seeking justice for Africans on the continent and in the diaspora. Not for a moment do I say that I am but fully supportive of the Palestinian cause.
What next are the lower depths are they going to descend into?
Just asking.
Galloway deserves credit for standing against the Zionist hoodlums of the Khazarian Mafia, but his contrarian nature is laid bare all too frequently, when the issue of Scotland’s self-determination is raised. Not only does he vehemently oppose it (and stood side by side with Tories to prevent it) but he is a selective Unionist, in that he is equally vehement in his support for a United Ireland. The mental gymnastics required to understand this contradiction is considerable; he despises The DUP and Orange Order, but aligns with them to keep Scotland in the same union he wants Northern Ireland to leave.
Chris,
You are a little out of date, as happily George has announced his retirement from the Independence debate.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/george-galloway-says-wont-fight-32270861
This is an amazing video, a surgeon recounts his experience of being arrested twice by the police on a Gaza march, on the second occasion he was interviewed about a section 12 Terrorism Act 2000 offence, what he says about the police behavior is incredible. This is exactly why the police caused so much hassle to Craig Murray. This is a must see interview …. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgvLMgXrDQY
Essential viewing.
At what point do the Police complicit in this behaviour remember that “I was just following orders” didn’t work at Nuremberg and shouldn’t work for them?
Do Far Right Watch know who, specifically, is behind “Harry’s Place”? (No association with you, “harry law”, I assume!)
I had to smile that the police contacted social services since he had taken his son into ‘a dangerous area.’ He was with his son standing outside a police station. That’s quite an admission really.
Then and now. [ https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/12/queen-camilla-suffragette-stones-barbie-doll ]
In a speech as president of the Wow (Women of the World) festival she [Queen Camilla] told guests “I would like to begin with a ‘show and tell’.
“I have here two stones that, on 27 May 1914, were thrown at the palace during a suffragette protest. The label on this one reads: ‘If a constitutional deputation is refused, we must present a stone message.’ This one says: ‘Constitutional methods being ignored drive us to window smashing.’
“The Times reported two days afterwards: ‘Between 11 and 12 o’clock on Wednesday, two women succeeded in evading the sentries at Buckingham Palace and entered the quadrangle. They threw stones at the windows and broke two panes of glass before the sentries intervened.’”
The women were arrested, but the palace’s master of the household refused to prosecute, and Queen Mary, wife of King George V, kept the stones, Camilla said.
——-
In 2024 they would charged with terrorism and banged up for 10 years.
Now I know why Jude Kelly, then Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre, never replied to my email in 2016 enquiring whether the SBC would be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the birth of ‘punk’.
Craig Murry 2025; “Rethinking Israel: Nethanyahu and the Mystery of National Identity”
Dozens of Islamic states ok, Russia ok, Scotland ok, every culture on Earth ok, but Israel not ok.
Slowest “genocide” in the history of this planet still going on with about as many babies born in Gaza as people killed. No Arab nation want to let Palestinians in out of Hamas indoctrination fear. EU?
Have a look at Zeina Jamaluddine’s explanation of the study in which she took part looking at expected deaths.
You can’t seriously string together the idea that it’s ok to commit genocide because the number of children we’re currently murdering is the same as those being born…into conditions in which they, women and men are very likely to die within days.
What a twisted, contorted mind.
The Muslim Arabs in Gaza are in that condition due to Hamas and their money funnel tunnels. Remember the good old days when Gaza was under the IDF and grew lots of vegs in glass houses for export?
For twisted contorted minds see Hamas or worse their apologists in the West, Iran or Qatar.
Being numerically challenged is a trait of white Western woke naive (childless) women by the way, the same target group for the Climate, Covid, Trump and Russia fear campaigns. Irrational, emotional creatures.
Gaza is a side show that fits their profile.
Oh so it’s Hamas who are dropping 2,000lb unguided bombs on UN refugee camps and schools in Gaza, is it?
Oh wait.
In the not too far-off future, Mr. Murray is going to realize that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is named thusly because it regularly holds elections and that it is equally as democratic as is Britain.
And that I’m not being hyperbolic or exaggerating.
Touché