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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Galloway it seems was denied the opportunity to make a maiden speech in the HoC on the grounds he had been an MP before. Instead he had to tack it on to a question. Very disappointing.
I suspect we will see more of the same and there is going to be a concerted effort to freeze him out at every opportunity. He made a couple of comments to the speaker about if he ‘caught his eye’ in the future…
First time I have watched parliament live in a long time. Reminded me of an Ian Blackford speech on loop. What a waste of space and time. Total gob shittery.
Seeing all the SNP MPs one after the other asking their banal questions and making their banal speeches was nauseating… what the fuck are they even doing there?
I wonder if Galloway will come to the realization that he has a far better platform already and the HoC is a waste of his time. Because it is.
As far as I can see the only remaining purpose of parliaments and similar bodies in Western nations is to conceal the fact that the executive branch is now the only part of government that has real power – and uses it.
We have most of the drawbacks of dictatorship, plus the additional serious problems that derive from changing governments periodically in order to allow politicians to blame one another for all their mistakes and negligence.
For which party should I vote at the next general election to get a government that would restore friendly relations with Russia and China, rid us of thermonuclear weapons and imperial pretensions, admit the Covid hoax and hold a proper inquiry into its causes and effects, cancel Net Zero entirely, and take active measures to end the genocide in Palestine?
Tom, I suspect that perhaps we share the same boat, in that we find ourselves in a Country where there isn’t actually anyone to vote for, who represents our common beliefs and values with respect to human rights, decency, the rule of Law and fair play. In fact, a mere boat, i suspect would barely suffice, and a Bulk Carrier might be more accommodating for the great many others sharing the same situation, no doubt in the US too, where the choices are equally stark, if not more so. The selections that are available being just a masquerade, or, as GG eloquently put it; “both cheeks of the same ar&e”. Oh, and to add, a piece of comedy gold from some time ago now, although yourself and others may recall it too, was when the Smarmy Swami Rishi the Rich, in a momentary fit of exuberance, claimed to have worked with the “Working Class”, only to be followed within a microsecond with him stating: Well, not actually “Working Class”. I remember a commenter at the time saying that Sunak probably considers Barristers to being members of the dirty fingernails Brigade. It was like he’d claimed to have once worked in a Leper Colony, but not with actual Lepers. Kind regards.
I’ll see your “cheeks” analogy, Pyewacket, and raise you Gore Vidal (about 50 years ago) in the USA. He knew whereof he spoke, being a boyhood friend of JFK and having a grandfather who was a US Senator.
“Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they’re both just aspirin”.
– Gore Vidal
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party… and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt – until recently… and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties”.
– Gore Vidal
To paraphrase Gore Vidal,
“There is now only one party in the United Kingdom, the Tory, or Property Party… and it has two right wings: Conservative and (New) Labour. Conservatives are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than New Labour, who are cuter, prettier, a bit less corrupt – until recently… and more willing than the Conservatives to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties”.
It fits well, doesn’t it?
Tom Welsh, as you see humanity’s very understanding of reality as determined by hoaxers, why bother voting at all? If covid and climate change are hoaxes, as you continually, repeatedly claim, why not general elections and even Israel? Maybe election results are merely concocted. Maybe there’s no such state as Israel at all, and the supposed billions of dollars of US military aid are merely an “invention of the MSM” like covid and climate change?
It seems to me that you must be attacking the wrong target, an insignificant decoy rather than the real threat. Such hoaxes would have to be international, so what good could voting at a national level possibly do? Whichever way anyone votes, “they” (the hermetically sealed band of international hoaxers) will just change public perception to make the representatives thus elected vote as required.
So we all may as well give up. We stand no more chance of changing anything than do farm animals of avoiding slaughter; the secret farmers are simply more intelligent than us, they will successfully trick us every time. Look at how “they” have got us all wasting our energies over Gaza! Pah, there never was such a place! It’s all just fake accounts and AI-generated atrocity porn, like the thirty deaths reported to me by my friends during the first two “covid peaks”, and my friend who has just taken two months to recover from “covid”. See? Even my own experience is warped by the illusions of the hoaxers, I cannot trust my eyes and ears, there really is no hope.
Do you have any hope, Tom Welsh? If you do, please go to the forums to explain it to me. Maybe if I can plug into the same Oracle of Truth as you do, I can stop wasting my time on cleaning teeth I never had and eating food I’ve been duped into believing in.
Well There’s always MOATS Tonight and Sundays
I tend to agree Mac
Agree almost wholeheartedly with the contents of this post, except for one glaring omission/contradiction:
How do you reconcile your glowing description of Galloway (acknowledging he’s no “Jesus Christ”) with…
“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.”
…when Galloway has not shied away from espousing racist, anti-immigrant bollocks?
The main reason for wishing immigration to be strictly limited is that the current population of the UK is about 4.5 times the maximum that the country’s resources could sustain indefinitely.
Claims to the contrary are whistling in the dark. Like the man who jumps off the Empire State Building and, as he passes the fourth floor on the way down, remarks, “So far, so good”.
Have a read of Monbiot and Attenborough.
No thanks. Neither of them is informed on the subject. For some scientific, empirical evidence see:
https://data.footprintnetwork.org/#/compareCountries?type=EFCpc&cn=229&yr=2019
How I wonder, does one know whether someone is not informed on a subject if choosing not to read what they have said on it?
Monbiot of the Disgraceful Guardian
Because one can read a representative sample of their output, and assuming they don’t pull a probably unlikely U-turn, one can then either disregard further output, or if it agrees with you, consume more of the same. But you knew that already, didn’t you, A2?
“The main reason for wishing immigration to be strictly limited is that the current population of the UK is about 4.5 times the maximum that the country’s resources could sustain indefinitely.”
The main reason that the current population is so high and growing is the absurd idea that the economy must grow indefinitely. To grow the economy, you need more bodies. Bodies are generally on a eighteen to twenty year delivery, if you can get them on order at all, our local manufacturers being very slow to boost output. If you need them at once, and we do, they have to be imported from abroad.
Exactly, Bayard. Spot on. My pet theory is that a little more than 100 years ago, instead of settling in for a century of vicious genocidal wars, the leaders of humanity should have been making careful plans to taper off population growth and devise ways of surviving comfortably without perpetual growth – which any mathematically competent 8-year-old could tell us is impossible.
Unfortunately, we have mostly had leaders who were thinking one or maybe two quarters ahead, and who didn’t give a rat’s arse what happens after they personally die.
For the other view of overpopulation, lack of new births, an ageing rural economy and a capital city of 32,000,000, look at Japan. It has over 40,000 centenarians, and a negligible birth rate, but it has high speed maglev trains, robots greeting guests, courteous people, and top down hierarchies which are buckling under the strain of a global western culture. Its land area is similar to Britain and its population is higher.
There is no reason other than political why we should not prevent resources being owned by offshore companies, why we should pay a layer of shareholders on top of every service we use, why we shouldn’t develop national resources and pay people to produce what we need, no reason other than political.
“no reason other than political.”
Well, yes there is. The elite that rules this country lives off rents and interest (which is just rent on money) and always has done. In order for the debtors to be able to afford to pay compound interest, the economy has to be growing continually. All those problems you cite are real problems, but they are not the root cause of the ills we suffer today, which is supporting an oligarchical elite that depends on unearned income. It’s a social and economic problem, not a political one.
“ In order for the debtors to be able to afford to pay compound interest, the economy has to be growing continually”
Dear Bayard, that’s Positive Money nonsense. It ignores constant govt spending.
Commercial bank lending is credit, which needs repaying with interest, but only govt spending currency into creation is a source of new net financial assets – out of which aggregate interest can be paid on private sector bank loans, regardless of headline growth.
Dear Mr Shigemitsu,
If I borrow, say, £10,000 at 5%, I will need to turn that in the course of a year into at least £10,500 just to pay the interest, let alone making it worth my while borrowing it in the first place. That increase in value required to pay the interest is what, amongst other things, makes the economy grow and it is this increase that the moneylenders need to support their trade. Meanwhile, as you say, government spending ensures that the money supply is adequate.
If you have a growing population the economy needs to grow to provide for them.
Yep, but the economy has been effectively moribund for the last decade. Whilst debts, deficit & population zoomed.
That along with chronic misrule is why everything’s going to s**t.
Sidenote to Alyson:
The Japanese isles are actually much bigger than Britain, but also more rugged.
That’s why the main island is so crowded, around the flat, fertile plains historically.
PM, true but irrelevant, the causality lies in the opposite direction.
Ah! I think I see now. The economy must go on growing to support the growing population. And the population must go on growing to keep the economy working.
MrShigemitsu, above, is of course correct. That the amount of money in circulation is the exact same thing as is also called the Deficit. The government merely chooses who gets it, relative to available assets and services they choose to fund. Losing assets is the problem. Privatising national or essential assets to offshore owners is the reason why the spending of the people has to be trimmed to match the loss of resources and the layer of shareholder rent.
Funding to give to arms manufacturers is a political choice and Cameron is the pivotal arms trader driving the acquisitional development of weapons. We could choose to fund ecologically beneficial industrial growth, top quality in house services, and decent housing, if it was a political priority.
Perhaps George will point this out with his customary eloquence, and perhaps people will be allowed to hear
– “…the current population of the UK is about 4.5 times the maximum that the country’s resources could sustain indefinitely.”
You’ll find much the same problem for the entire human population globally; for instance, here’s the energy expenditure of our current fossil fuel era, placed in the long term perspective:
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/peak-ff-oil.png
…and it gets worse; I suggest you consider the entire article:
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/10/sustainable-means-bunkty-to-me/
Governments choose what they wish to create money for. They can give it to their mates as helicopter money, as with covid. They can fund infrastructure, as with Bevan. They can take bribes and reward the lobbyists as with the Conservative leadership, and Starmer. But the amount of money in circulation and who gets it is politically determined. ‘Who Gets the Money’ is currently touring Australia. Truthsayers face threats of course. Greed and control are addictive and not easy to relinquish
– “Governments choose what they wish to create money for.”
I agree. My concern above is with finite physical resources, not the human mass hallucination called money.
– “Greed and control are addictive and not easy to relinquish”
Again I agree, but the propensity for addiction is not inevitable, it is caused by the destruction and breakdown of community:
https://www.brucekalexander.com/articles-speeches/283-addiction,-environmental-crisis,-and-global-capitalism
“The main reason for wishing immigration to be strictly limited is that the current population of the UK is about 4.5 times the maximum that the country’s resources could sustain indefinitely.”
The most important resource is food and the problem with food production in the UK is that it is geared towards producing food at the lowest possible cost, so that the supply chain can make the maximum profit in bringing it from the producer to the customer and still keep food prices low in line with successive governments’ cheap food policy. Food is kept cheap because what you don’t spend on food, you can afford to spend on rent, or pay on interest. If we had a policy of producing the maximum amount of food from the land available, the land would support a far greater population than it does now. However, no-one would be making the vast profits they do today.
The population is 4.5 times the country’s ability to sustain them all? Where did you dig this up? It’s complere nonsense! Sustain indefinitely? And when you say sustainable, who, exactly are you talking about? Rich man, poor man? Given that we produce more of everything than we can possibly ever consume, the likelyhood of running out of food and bricks is vanishingly small. So you want to cut the population by 4.5 times? How do you propose to do that? That’s a lot of people. Every time I read something like this, I think eugenics and I know that first in line for exclusion, are people of colour as it’s already happening. Back in the 1960s, the buzzword was population reduction, too many (poor, dark-skinned) people. The Club of Rome, led by NATO, Cold War warriors led the charge on curbing the (poor, dark-skinedd) people of the world. Like all curves in Nature, the one on population, peaks and troughs. We’ve hit our peak, the problem (for white people) is that most of the people on the planet are poor and dark-skinned and lots of them want back what we stole from them in the first place. So there’s an ideological centre to your alleged (and objective of course) sustainability advocacy. Very depressing to read this kind of thinking.
‘So far as I can see, only active supporters of genocide are not in the official view “extremists”.’
This is no exaggeration. Nor is it only the Uniparty Friends of Apartheid/ Genocide who are trying to establish that view. To my knowledge nobody in the English media queried Starmer for condemning the SNP ceasefire motion for stating that collective punishment is happening in Gaza.
Then there are the holy men of England, moral backbone and conscience of the nation. A couple of weeks ago the Archbishop of Canterbury refused to meet with a Palestinian Christian bishop because that bishop had shared a platform with … Jeremy Corbyn. The royals and other celebrities have contributed by suggesting the biggest outrage since October 7th has been criticism of what Israel is doing. Or ‘antisemitism’ as they prefer to call it.
Aaron Bushnell, the young American airforce man, stated on the eve of his martyrdom that if you want to know what you would have done if you had known about the Holocaust while it was happening … you are doing it right now. The holocaust in Palestine could not be more obvious and the entire world can see what England’s political and media class (both liberal and conservative wings) and its holy men, royals and celebrities are doing.
Thank you Craig for daring to point out that our noble elites stand naked as depraved monsters.
The only sensible reply so far!
Yes. Aaron Bushnell. Refusing to fight in an unjust war.
George Galloway refusing to honour the genocide of the Palestinian people with the term war.
In his own words. Just truth, honour, and a just patriotism:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DvHIbpy1LWM&t=8s&pp=2AEIkAIB
Speaking at the Oxford Students Union
Sorry I may have missed an update. Is Craig in Greece because he still can’t come home due the threat of bogus terrorism charges?
Yes
How does that work with your recent visit to the Assange hearing ? Je suis confused.
Same here. Doesn’t quite make sense.
Me 2.
He was on Tourist Visa?
I suppose it must mean that the PTB are slow on the uptake. It reflects well on Mr Murray in so many different ways, too. Courage, élan, intelligence, insight…
“In and out quickly”.
Passing through the same border police who arrested him last time.
I wonder, Craig, if you’re not overreacting. In the year to June 2023 about 2,500 people were detained under Section 7, of which just 159 were eventually charged. Massive waste of police time.
Pears Morgaine
Of the 2,500 people detained under Section 7 of the Terrorism Act, the vast majority end in no further action. But in my case there is further action and, as the letter from Police Scotland published here stated, I am subject to an investigation.
That there are as yet no charges and no arrest warrant does not mean that there will not be, at any moment. I have no fear of a jury trial for bogus terrorism offences, but we can be quite certain that if charged I would be in jail for at least the standard 18 months in Scotland on remand awaiting trial.
I judged it worth risking a couple of days for the Assange hearing. But if you think I have lightly abandoned my home and family on a false pretext, you are nuts.
Of course, as in my case, the police never suspected over 2,000 people of Terrorism in the first case. Like Kit Klarenberg, Vanessa Beeley, Joanna Ross, John Laughland etc it is used as a ruse to confiscate the electronics of dissidents and investigate their political connections.
Pears of course would be prepared to risk 18 months in jail on remand.
Stay free, Craig.
It is infectious.
@craig
Mr. Murray, if you ever consider taking refuge in the same place as Mr. Snowden, I swear, I will stop honoring you as my hero if you let me miss the opportunity to be an assistant in a real spy adventure!
I can’t arrange FSB cover for you, but I’m a damn good driver, and also may be useful as a local resident who can speak English. You can always find my contacts via the link under my nickname, incl. my phone number, please save it just in case.
Now obviously, if you thought there was a real risk of your being arrested on “bogus terrorism charges” (which is a red notice in EU countries, among which Greece), do you think you would inadvertently disclose your actual whereabouts on an open internet blog that is monitored 24/7 ?
Good luck in La-La land.
We need to keep our host safe. So yes, send the swat team 2 islands east of Santorini…
so you think Greece would honor a request from the UK based on bogus evidence? why do you think that?
I didn’t realize bogus charges automatically led to a red notice. I mean in unusual cases like Assange, yes, but I don’t think the US has the same kind of axe to grind with Mr. Murray.
You’re too smart for me.
Assange – since you mention him – never thought, when leaving Sweden, of fleeing to the EU. With hindsight, probably a tactical mistake…
If I were Aussie I would feel the same!
Nothing to do with the USA or UK!
You can s.. my ick.
Apparently not.
Australia is the biggest disappointment for me.
really? how many countries honored the US request to stop that plane they suspected Snowden was on again? Assange wasn’t “fleeing” at the time; He had stuck around in Sweden waiting to be interviewed, i believe the original prosecutor dropped the matter. I’m not impugning your intelligence, just your integrity in smearing Murray.
When Assange left Sweden for England, Britain was still in the EU. So your point being Melrose?
As we well know, UK membership in the EU was always a front, a tricky way for the 5 eyes to get insider evidence on plans of nations deemed unreliable, like Spain or France.
I still can’t quite see how being arrested for “terrorism” on the grounds that you disagreed publicly with the government can possibly be consistent with “democracy”, “freedom”, and “human rights”.
I have not “disclosed” my location to them. Do you seriously think they do not know where I am all the time?
It’s perfectly normal to take every single step to avoid being booked on bogus charges. Assange did it, and you have the same legitimate motives.
Meanwhile, if you actually think the baddies know where you stay every day, what’s the point in trying to have a remake of North by Northwest?
Point is he is less likely to be arrested outside the UK.
Agreed. That’s exactly what I meant when I earlier mentioned that Assange made the wrong choice. Spain or France would never have granted his extradition to the USA. They may unwillingly belong to NATO, but yet they hate the US government and its subordinates, UK among others
It takes some imagination to find anything positive to say about George Galloway. Time will tell for Rochdale, and the rest of us.
The rest of your article I applaud – thank you from one extremist to another.
One could begin by saying that he is the best British orator since Churchill. And a much nicer man with no blood on his hands.
(‘One could begin by saying that he is the best British orator since Churchill. And a much nicer man with no blood on his hands.’)
I would unhesitatingly go one better, Tom Welsh, by submitting that (imho) his oratorical prowess far outstrips, even that of the Blenheim Palace bloviator
(notwithstanding the latter’s ‘Finest Hour’ resolve, et al) ?
Here you go, Ros. This is what he said about today’s PMQs.
George Galloway MP
@georgegalloway
A sheer sign of the dysfunctionality of the British Parliament is that the victim of a racial attack so severe it dominated exchanges between the prime minister and leader of the opposition was NOT called by the Speaker despite rising to speak throughout PMQs! #HackneyAbbott
1:15 PM · Mar 13, 2024
He’s despicable.
So, Diane Abbott was ignored during PMQs by good old dependable “Lèche-cul Lindsay”. Why am I not in the least bit surprised?
Galloway is a mystery spends his life sticking it to the English establishment but is happy for them to run Scotland into the ground. He’s hated in his hometown. I wish hed bald gracefully without the need for that stupid hat and faux tones.
An astute political analysis, with a comprehensive evidence base.
Thank you for this and your excellent podcast with @theswissbox.
I have increased my monthly subscription to you – or rather set up a new one and cancelled the old. Not a vast amount, but every little helps I hope 😎
I was delighted to find that George Galloway was the new MP for Rochdale which is about 2 miles from where I was born and went to school.
I have particularly liked George Galloway for over 20 years, when he was summoned to Washington, accused of corruption re the war in Iraq. The Americans had never seen anything like it, as George stood on the witness stand, as he not only defended himself with facts he could substantiate, but tore into them, about the facts he knew the Americans were doing in Iraq – leaving their mouths wide open – speechless.
His acceptance speech in Rochdale is well worth watching. “This is for Gaza”
The fact that the result sent all the political class and all the mainstream media into a panic reflects their total immorality in supporting mass genocide from wherever it originates. It merely confirmed to me how evil, corrupt or totally brainwashed they are.
I mean licking Saddam’s arse has to be a bit of a black mark, surely
I not so sure – all the “best” people serviced the winsome Hussein’s regime – remember Britain and the then West Germany supplied industrial production facilities and various methods of delivery for various poison gases – which Saddam’s regime were then able to deploy against both Iran in war and the Kurdish minority in internal security operations.
You may not like Mr Galloway or his activities then or now but his interventions are hardly the crimes against humanity that Britain, West Germany and of course America helped bring about by their relationship with the Iraqi dictator both as a client proxy and as a enemy
Poison gas or hot air seems like a no brainier but what do I know?
Will, from what I recall Saddam killing either Iranians or his own mattered little to his Imperial handlers. His unforgivable sins in their eyes was his resolute refusal of sycophancy towards the apartheid regime, and the biggest, when he offered to sell Oil in currencies other than the US$. That particular agreement went back to Nixon’s days, the collapse of Bretton Woods and replacement of Gold by the Petro-dollar.
Yea thanks, Pyewacket. I wasn’t sure about why this faithful proxy became a despised enemy – “the Hitler in Baghdad” – but what you say sounds about right, certainly dovetails in with current revelations about the strength of the Israeli Lobby in Western societies.
The speech by Sunak on extremism was because of the gift Lindsay Hoyle gave them (indirectly) By scuppering the SNP opposition motion and then blaming ‘intimidation of MPs’ he ensured that Tories could jump on that as their reason for more security and tighter laws against protest. They wheeled out mention of Jo Cox and David Amiss as the reasoning but neither were killed by protestors and even these new laws on protests would not have prevented their deaths.
Deliberately heightening tensions and by putting forward the ‘extremism’ laws they are race baiting the votes lent to them in the Red Wall.
Israel, however, has spent many years cultivating politicians here and helping them via the ‘Friends of Israel’ groups but I think the difficulty in speaking out is even more severe both in and because of the US. Their superpacs funding both FOR and AGAINST certain candidates reinforces the idea that the US must both fund and back Israel without question. In an election year, despite even Biden’s statement of support for Zionism, he has reached the end of his tether, apparently. But is even more toothless due to the support he’ll lose in November.
Had the events of October 7th been planned with this in mind? It would make a good conspiracy theory. Provoke Israel into an action SO abhorrent that world opinion turns against them but do it at such a time where it will not be stopped. A sacrifice of tens of thousands of innocents for a long term plan? Undoubtedly this is the kind of thing a politician would do but I think it requires more intelligence than some of them have to offer although they DO have the heartlessness for it..
I’m afraid that having watched Galloway over several decades of political action, he remains in my mind somewhat of a self-publicist. Having said that I have never met him in person, and defer to Craig’s personal knowledge as to his sociability.
However, there remains one fatal flaw in his political lexicon and that is his continuing resistance to even the idea of Scottish Independence. Aparently every other country in the world should have self-idenitification EXCEPT Scotland.
Sorry Craig, While I admire his standing up to the war mongers in Congress, his blind loyalty to the British State means I’ll never trust him as an ally.
If I were British-born from my old fashioned lefty perspective I would be Unionist. I would consider SNP as nationalist (bad) Chauvinist party!
For some inexplicable reason I don’t consider SNP or Alba or Catalan’s fascist/nationalistic movements.
On the other hand similar movements around the world I consider semi-fascist.
Proletariat of the world Unite is 100 years Slogan.
Internationalism not nationalism. Bit old fashioned I know 😏
BTW JLM was re-branded in 2004 from Poale Zion.
They were excluded from the International movement.
¨…… especially the non-Zionist Jewish members, remained suspicious of Zionist nationalist tendencies,¨
Well I’m British-born and “lefty” but certainly believe in Scotland’s right to self-determination and independence!
This has categorically never been a “union of equals”…
“I’m afraid that having watched Galloway over several decades of political action, he remains in my mind somewhat of a self-publicist”.
If you are waiting for a successful political leader who is shy and retiring, you’ll have a long wait.
So the Genocide is Nothing Tom…Where do you hear a voice like George. telling truth… I love the Grayzone Too
Tony L: “his blind loyalty to the British State” – surely you jest?
I think the Member for Rochdale has already touched on this but it was the success of Mr Tully a local man from Rochdale who stood as an independent which has struck the most fear in to the Establishment.
If citizens in their local constituencies will vote for a respected non-aligned candidate against the two big parties and beat them then this is re-producible across the country and would provoke a crisis of legitimacy for the big two parties. George is a known figure to the Establishment and they will have strategies already in place to contain this person of rare gifts, and said gifts are unlikely to re-produced in the other independent candidates that follow. That is why the example of Mr Tully is such a threat.
The process of being selected as an MP and then getting selected for a winnable seat within the two main political parties will ensure that the candidates will necessarily be acculturated to the demands/expectations around foreign policy and what can and cannot be said. This process of education/indoctrination is not one Mr Tully or those who would seek to follow him would receive and therefore they will be more independent when it comes to the UK’s foreign policy objectives i.e. supporting genocide. This really is the threat as most of the population opposes our Govt and the Opposition stance to this as they may well do for other foreign policy objectives.
What I would also be interested to know is how many times MP’s in the House of Commons have, since the 7th October 2023, referenced the Israeli conduct in Gaza as Genocide or likely/plausible Genocide ?
Further post to follow
Johnna, imo, you’re bang on the money. As far as the tptb go GG is an open book, someone else, a stranger, who might want to add his own pages is totally off limits. Heaven forbid, he might want to tell Israel and the US to just fuck off and that sentiment to become contagious. Oh dear !
quote
They are clinging to Israel, not because they have a genuine belief Israel is a force for good… but because it has been …the membership card for the political country club. Unquote
This sentence seems to describe the political situation in the majority of European countries very well indeed. Instead of using “Israel”, maybe the term “The Israel Lobby” (as defined by Mearsheimer and Walt) would be more appropriate.
Here in Switzerland, the priorities of politicians of all parties have been clearly visible since 7 October 23. Demonstrations against Israel were practically banned in German-speaking Switzerland and only halfway tolerated in the French-speaking part. When the Swiss representation in the Security Council supported a call for a ceasefire, this was massively criticised by the powerful SVP. party. Canada and Sweden have resumed payments to UNRWA in the wake of the horrible events in Gaza. Not so Switzerland, which is still actively helping to starve the people in Gaza by withholding aid money. The synchronised media treat this topic as a taboo. The national politicians commissioned a law that can punish support for Hamas with up to 10 years in jail. Every day the official media warns “about the rampant anti-Semitism” in this country. There was apparently an incident in Zurich where an Orthodox Jew was injured by a 15 year old boy who declared himself an ISIS supporter. This story came very convenient for the current campaign.
Generally, the national government is not stingy if it comes to foreign aid, Zelensky was recently received by our minister Cassis with a most warm bear-hug. After the departure of the „comedian in cargo pants“ it was declared that Switzerland would help Ukraine with CHF 1.5 billion. A few days later came the denial, it would be 6 billion (as requested by Volodomir) spread over 10 years. In view of this unexpected expense, the leader of Die Mitte party has now proposed general tax increases…
Justified abhorrence of Netanyahu’s Israel is one thing – endorsement of a cynical self-server like George Galloway quite another. I get the impression that Craig Murray – whom I have interviewed, and liked – will go out on whatever limb to support an anti-Establishment cause. His bending over backwards to excuse Putinist Russia is an even sharper case in point. Bitterness (however justified) and linguistic accomplishment should not cloud moral judgment.
Sorry Simon
Moral Judgement is best left to clerics and maybe Philosophers.
In the Western World we are in Mammon territory despite the religious backside cover of the voracious Money Lenders and War Mongerers.
All men and women have flaws and I am in no position (and neither are you) to say whether someone is a ‘Good’ person or a ‘Bad’ person. Good people can sometimes do what we personally see as bad and Bad people can sometimes do what we see good. It’s called being human and we all suffer from that blessing or curse.
I won’t go too deeply into George Galloway’s political psyche but I can say that on International political positions he has been correct on every one – and he is on Gaza, not surprisingly.
At home in the UK I think we may discuss or argue about the merits of not Brexit but the idea of a Lexit and of course the Union. But that does not lower his political status in my eyes.
It’s a bit like that we both see a house on fire and we discuss whether the flames are red or yellow?
My view and no doubt George’s view would be: Let’s put the fire out first – rescue the people in the house, and once that’s done we can carry on the colour-of-the-flames debate.
Starmer discusses the colour of the flames with the Tories, whereas I’m sure that despite our differences George and myself would be more keen to put the fire out, then talk.
Yes – he is a self-promoter but unlike many other MPs and commentators he is a very interesting self-promoter.
More to the point – on The Middle East his knowledge is second to none and that’s why I listen to what he says.
That’s what makes him stand out – he is no shrinking violet, thank goodness.
Very well said Mark C
how dare “Putinist” Russia defend itself! your moral judgement is clouded if it causes you to overlook the true causes of the war, and support neonazis in Ukraine.
“Netanyahu’s Israel”, ie Netanyahu alone is the problem with Israel and Britain, the US and the EU are not participating in the slaughter and starvation of Palestinian women and children.
You err in expecting to be regarded as Craig’s moral superior when your only instinct after reading his article is to smear the two of the few public figures opposing the genocide. In Craig’s case because he has dared to question the Ukraine narratives of the genocidaires. Nobody here regards establishment liberals as the moral superiors of George Galloway let alone Craig Murray.
What have you got against Putin? Why do you think George Galloway is a self-server or that CM will ‘go out on whatever limb to support an establishment cause’?
Simon Hewitt
“excuse Putinist Russia ” Lets unpack that. ‘Excuse’ – excuse Russia of what exactly? Responding to a previously US planned (evidence runs from just after WWII) subversion of the Ukraine and its conversion into a weapon of NATO aimed at Russia. Excuse them of intervening to stop the death toll (14,000 and counting) inflicted by the neo-Nazi government in Kiev (or ‘Keeev’ as it is slavishly pronounced by the BBC) – a death toll totally ignored by the west. Etc. etc. – not that you have the nous to know anything about that.
And ‘Putin’s’ Russia. Do you realise that Putin has something like an 80% popularity rating in Russia? Do you realise that if Putin was to step down he would be replaced by someone who would be both more anti-west and also more popular? Putin does not run Russia because he forces the population to like him. He is one of a whole section of Russian society who can see clearly what the US and EU/UK are up to, and he has the support of the vast majority of Russians.
You, on the other hand, seem to be one of the many sheep who swallow without question all the excrement you are fed by western media. You have my pity.
Simon Hewitt
A series of ad hominem attacks.
I think you’re wrong about the reason for Corbyn’s defeat. ‘Antisemitism’ was very much a side issue, a fight in an Islington tearoom between Jeremy and Lady Margaret Hodge that had no impact upon voting intentions in red wall seats or pretty much anywhere else. Corbyn’s great error was to misread the public mood over Brexit and assume he could build the New Jerusalem without putting that vexing issue to bed first. As a,result, Boris ran rings around him, even if they weren’t quite so literal as the ones he ran around poor old Ken in London.
But after four more years of woeful governance and without the veneer of ‘popular Tory Democracy’ provided by Johnson, it has become clear to everyone just how corrupt, greedy, vacuous and incompetent the leadership of the Tory party really is, that gaggle of uncharismatic and contemptible financial wonks and former client journalists. Some contributors to the thread have tried to make out this is a racial issue but it isn’t. Sunak, Braverman and Cleverly aren’t any worse than Truss, Hunt or Gove. It was the same when Cameron put his trotters up in 2016 and his creepy* buddy Osborne was quickly relegated to the Argos backroom of politics (and the *ice queen cometh….). Even a stuffed suit like Starmer is able to walk up and down all over them but whether he and his Tory-lite battalions will recoup the trillions they and their cronies have stolen is another matter.
Whereas your mate, Galloway is a curate’s egg. Yes, he stands against the Gaza genocide and was against the Iraq War but he’s also prepared to endorse or explain away innumerable atrocities committed by his beloved non-Western tyrannies. His stance on Scottish independence is a less of an urgent issue in comparison and, as you’ve said so many times, the only pro-independence party with any degree of electability is actually anti-independence. If he’s not talking about that anymore, it’s because he knows he’s won. But on his own he has minimal impact.. Blair was still elected again in 2005, the Bradford West sequel was a loud sounding (it always is with him) nothing and Rochdale may also be a one-off. But the establishment is still scared and that’s why ickle Rishi, whose only aim in life is personal enrichment with as little stress as possible, was forced to trundle out of his box and engage in some Iron Heel level scare tactics alongside an attempt at dividing people with dire warnings about Islamist and far right extremism (Netanyahu supporters, perhaps?).. He’s rattled because he’s realised, as you say, that the cri de couer of the soulless spivs and deadeyed war chiefs, Israel, isn’t beloved by the British people, that the many books and films about the Holocaust have convinced most of them that genocide against any group of people is wrong, not that it gives the Zionists a sacred right to do whatever they want. And the people who look most like the Nazis right now are the Israeli government and its backers. Every poll shows that an overwhelming majority of the population supports the pro-peace marchers, and far from being ‘aliens’ at variance with our values, they represent a long tradition in public life; protest against injustice and atrocity across the globe, including when carried out or acquiesced in by our government. Rather than uncritically worshipping that hunched man-god Churchill, who was wrong about every subject except Hitler, or examining Henry VIII stools with David Starkey, people should read A J P Taylor’s The Troublemakers. Most people want an end to the Russian invasion of Ukraine but also support a ceasefire in Gaza. And in one of the many videos of the protesters, special attention was paid to the statue of Boudicca for, at this moment in time, Boudicca has become a Palestinian, opposing the colonisers. The establishment knows they’ve lost the battle for hearts and minds but are trapped in the tomb of the Biden zombie and the Netanyahu ghoul. And, if people combine their outrage at the Gaza genocide with other reasons for discontent – in the second unhappiest country in the world- it could be dynamite. Unlike you, I believe in the innate decency of the British people, despite an often powerful tendency towards delusion among them, and feel they are opening their eyes and recoiling in horror at what our government and its cronies and international allies are doing.
Ai has a long way to go yet.
Yes, you are not very convincing (the “i” in “AI” should be capitalised).
If you don’t believe in Artificial Intelligence, just stick with Natural Stupidity (NS)
You are right that Corbyn adopting a vote again policy on Brexit was what destroyed him electorally. But that second referendum policy was forced on him by the same elements in his party who pushed the antisemitism “crisis” scam. Not least by his replacement, who very quickly stopped being Sir Remain after the real goal was achieved. Corbyn had massively increased Labour majorities in all those Red Wall seats when he went with his democratic instinct in 2017 and respected the Brexit vote.
Johnson adopted a Brexit policy that certainly helped him win one election. The consequences of that policy are threatening to reduce his party to a rump in the impending election, will severely affect the UK for fifty years and will see Cameron and Johnson go down in history books as two of the worst prime ministers ever. There is a real world out there. Corbyn’s policy was to negotiate a “jobs first” deal. Not so easy to sell of course but was it wrong?
Don’t forget Truss – she is a very strong contender.
“Antisemitism” works because the media reliably jump on it for reasons that we can individually speculate about. Whether the voters care about it is irrelevant. The target is unable to get any other message across.
Craig, a year ago you explained that the way in which Charles’s succession after Elizabeth’s death was managed, was not usual. You pointed out that Charles haring off to the Scottish Parliament, and the Irish Parliament, to be acclaimed and certified, wasn’t the way that process was usually done. Doing it during the 10-day period of mourning when no discouraging word about the monarch could decently be spoken, was a tactic that revealed how long and carefully the palace establishment had been preparing for this day, to assure that the people who control one of the biggest fortunes on the planet do not get challenged, or ruffled.
That’s when I realized why Jeremy Corbyn had to be removed as Labor Party head in that obviously farce. As a long supporter of Palestinian rights he wasn’t anymore “antisemitic” then than anytime earlier. But what he also was, at a soon-to-be dangerous time (for them), was a Republican. He might well have been Prime Minister when Elizabeth died. And wouldn’t that have been something. I’ve been wondering how many of the other Labor Party members who were purged at the time were also Republicans.
The British have genocide form, Kitchener locked Boer women and children away in filthy camps to starve to death or die of disease. The death toll is estimated at 27000 (including troops on the battlefield) with 22000 (estimated) women and children.
It is so strange reading all this, true and conflicting observations, like feeling the pull of deep counter currents beneath a deceptively calm surface of the sea. Netanyahu was pulled back into leadership after his party lost the election, because the genocidal settlers need his diplomatic skills to smooth over their unfortunate tendency to honesty. He softens and mollifies their savagery. He talks with leaders of other countries, offering them sweeteners, like preferential access to Gaza’s gas. They are building a floating port which was initially thought to be for rescue of civilians, but is actually to get immediate access to the gas fields.
Our political leaders know we are small and weak and so they have chosen to side with strength, like France did in WWII. Corbyn was willing to ignore the strength of the occupying forces which remain in Britain and the EU, now known as NATO. American Law states that US financial interests have priority over the legislative frameworks of all partner nations. Waving the Palestinian flag at a Labour Conference was the most utterly rash entrapment naivety. It declared Britain enemy to Israel. Flags matter. People are willing to die for flags.
The WEF has decided that business needs require Gaza’s gas and all of Russia’s oil and gas.
We are now bombing Russian oil refineries and Putin is putting us on notice that nuclear Armageddon will be imminent if we don’t stop.
Israel is the only country with the A bomb, allegedly, source long lost in the mists of memory, it will need very little provocation to believe every nation is its enemy and act to promote its own tribe over all others.
Diplomacy and negotiation are continuing at every point of contact, and Netanyahu is looking more strained than ever before.
In truth, it’s them that are weak, it only requires men and women of these nations to turn things around. We are the majority, they the minority. The unelected council of Europe without redress to MEPs allowed the Dutch futures market to be sold to American hedge funds. Hence the increase of prices of oil and gas by 1500%. But as we are out of Europe why are prices of electricity up by more than 400%? Guess who owns the production of electricity, ooh yes they are the same companies as the production of electricity. And can you guess who owns them? American hedge funds. Now, how about the national grid, in Scotland. Well because we are in Scotland we have to pay a premium to use the national grid sold off in 1991-2. Premium …ie extra to get our electricity, between 15-20% more than our counterparts in England. Even though to heat a house in Scotland is 15% more because of our natural temperate environment! Longgannet production of electricity was closed because the increase in the price of using the national grid. The increase took all profits, outweighing the profits, salaries, and costs of running the plant. Back to the national grid: no, it’s not SSE, Southern Power or any of those companies that own the national grid – it’s the American hedge funds!
We have all abducted our responsibility to our nations, our mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, by allowing this to happen. It first started when in 1974 when Winston Churchill Jr MP, along with other MPs and military officers, attempted a coup d’état in England. The MPs resigned, officers cashiered, but they instigated changes that allowed Thatcher to come to power. And the denationalisation of Brit oil, steel, phones, electricity etc., the stealing of national assets illegally to hedge funds. So we can all blame English voters. But the destruction of society and morality, part and parcel of the divide and conquer, with the help of a few assassinations. As Thatcher said, there is no such thing as society! Aye, but then Labour, with the help of MI5 removed Smith, so bLair became the aristocracy’s poodle to further their destruction of society of all nations of these islands. Now they are pushing to exterminate you and me, threatening Russia, underhandedly and cowardly arming Ukrainians, to kill Russians. Look at flight24 and you can see American and English aircraft flying around the Black Sea giving coordinates for drones to murder Russians. One step of any nation into Ukrainian sovereign territory, they will be fried to a crisp! But these political degenerates and friends of Israel don’t care – they won’t be there; and because you have proved yourself, you are all sheep and ready to be fleeced.
Excellent summary, highlander. Bernie is flagging up this concern to Congress as these same hedge funds are buying up all the infrastructure in Ukraine, ready for reconstruction, and incidentally Farage despicably condemned the London mayor for refusing to sell the London Underground to them. Additional costs to us for all insurance and infrastructure are now added to pay shareholders of these same hedge funds.
“The unelected council of Europe without redress to MEPs allowed the Dutch futures market to be sold to American hedge funds”
That sounds bizarre. The council of Europe is not the EU, so why would the question be referred to MEPs? Secondly how can the Council decide a Dutch national matter? I do not understand this claim.
“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.”
Respectfully Craig, speaking as one of the above mentioned classes, that’s probably your strongest fault-line and your most unappealing trait.
It is George Galloway who is in Parliament, not Nigel Farage. And it was Jeremy Corbyn who almost stormed the general election in 2017, Farage was nowhere.
Based on my experience I can assure you, and perhaps allay your fears, that if there was an election between a Galloway/Corbyn-type party and a Farage-type party tomorrow it would be a non-contest. The Reform Party deservedly came in sixth in the Rochdale by-election, a full 30%+ behind Galloway.
Similarly Farage has never won a parliamentary seat in his life despite seven, count them – seven – attempts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Farage#Electoral_performance
He may have fared better in European elections and the Brexit vote but they were essentially narrowly based elections, on cross-party issues, with (Brexit aside) very low turnouts.
In reality he is little more than a wily BNP candidate with a nice suit and, pint of beer in hand, the common touch. He doesn’t stand up to a moment’s scrutiny and, like the BNP, he doesn’t command much electoral support.
I respectfully suggest you shouldn’t allow your previously mentioned experience in Hastings to colour your views of an entire community/population.
Aye… that’s why Farage was thrown bodily out of an Edinburgh pub! No, only in England – and southern English people at that – vote for the likes of him and the tories in general.
I don’t underestimate the cunning and resourcefulness of Farage. He had a daily chat show on the radio leading up to the 2016 election. He had the Red Wall in the palm of his hand, and UKIP candidates for all the seats. The day before the election he pulled all his UKIP candidates and said: Vote for Boris. Get Brexit done. None of us woolly liberals knew about his chat show. I was banned from the Sun’s Facebook page years ago, so am blind to the forces that move that huge swathe of the population. Farage is there though, driving his agenda on behalf of these monolithic financial giants, pulling publicity stunts like nominating himself to be leader of the conservatives as the only person on Trump’s wavelength. He is the rotten apple in the pile that spoils the rest.
Aah yes, silly me I missed that all over the western world and in the UK the people have elected good socialist governments and have not elected nasty neoliberal governments at all.
It’s an observation of fact. It might be right or wrong, but an observation of fact is not subject to moral judgment. You appear to argue that refusal to be deluded as to fact is immoral.
craig
Agreed.
You can only judge voters by what they do ( give the Tories an 80 majority) and by what they are doing at the moment.
Moving rapidly to the Right across the Western World.
The definition of what constitutes the ‘ Working Class ‘ in a Neo-liberal Economy is up for grabs.
Proletarian is another that needs reframing by the scholars.
Way above my grade that task.
“You can only judge voters by what they do ( give the Tories an 80 majority) and by what they are doing at the moment.
Moving rapidly to the Right across the Western World.”
Mark,
In addition to my reply to Craig, what exactly do you think is the ‘Left ‘option people have to vote for across the Western World”?
Peter
the simple answer to that question is that there isn’t growing ‘ Left Wing’ that appeals to the Western voters.
Bernie Sanders and The Squad are cowardly and when you get a much braver leftie ( Corbyn) he is seen as a threat by the working class and poor who vote for Johnson and his right wing Tories.
You cannot hope to win if you don’t first defend yourself.
Put simply: at this point intime there is no Left Option that can get near power.
Why?
Because of the above.
Craig,
Thanks for your reply.
If you re-read my comment I think you will notice that it is entirely fact-based.
The reasons people vote Conservative are complex and many. You yourself have noted that one of the main reasons the Tories won the last election was because of the unremitting antisemitism smear campaign against Corbyn, and that as part of a wider, comprehensive, unprecedented, full-scale establishment – from the Chief Rabbi to the Archbishop of Canterbury – assault upon him and the Labour Party.
The second main reason Labour lost the election was because of their Brexit policy – Starmer’s handy work – surely the single stupidest policy on a top issue any mainstream political party has ever taken into a general election. To recap: after the years of division over Brexit, including the campaign, the vote, the interminable negotiations and then Theresa May’s years of sclerosis, Labour’s policy was to reject the democratic result, reopen negotiations with Brussels and then have a second vote – more painful division – which Labour ministers would then be free to vote against and on which Corbyn would remain neutral. Full marks to Starmer on his first move to destroy Labour as a meaningful party of the left.
To those two main reasons you can add the Red Wall voters being taken in by Johnson’s lying promise of a ‘levelling up’ programme. It was never going to happen with the party of austerity.
None of the above implies a taste for “nasty neoliberal governments”, much less a longing for Farage’s thinly veiled racism.
Re: ‘Aah yes, silly me I missed that all over the western world and in the UK the people have elected good socialist governments and have not elected nasty neoliberal governments at all. It’s an observation of fact.’
According to the ONS, the UK now has the highest tax burden as a percentage of GDP since the second world war, with defence spending near post-war lows at 2.3% (which is proposed to increase, but only by 0.2 percentage points). The tax burdens in most Western countries are even higher:
https://obr.uk/box/the-uks-tax-burden-in-historical-and-international-context/
Craig – I trust you are comfortable where you are ensconced.
While Assange’s film is opening eyes and hearts across Australia, another revelatory film is also making waves: Finding the Money.
The Amazing Australia tour ended with a sold out screening in Sydney! Thank you to Jim Stanford for moderating, Stephanie Kelton, Steven Hail, Gabie, Susan and all the volunteers who made it happen!!
Just arrived in Greece, at Thessaloniki International Film Festival for our European premiere tonight and tomorrow!
Then on to the UK, Berlin, Zurich, and Spain!
See you there!! —> https://www.findingmoneyfilm.com
Craig, You are graced by a placid disposition always looking for the best but not seeing the obvious. I had family members who lived long lives, and lived through WW1-2. Who were gassed bombed torpedoed and killed.
After looking and listening to their experiences, of which only in their latter years they expressed, English voters from 1979 gave away everything their ancestors gained for them fighting two world wars because of bigotry selfishness and parochial greed. George Galloway only represent the bravery, memories and honesty, of all of our forefathers of all these nations and survivors of the world wars.
And today, we have the same sons and daughters of the fascist aristocracy reimposing themselves through the use of poverty, marginalisation, economics, laws and now no redress in law. Or of course law you buy, which is not for the likes of me or even you.
” 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.”
By parity of reason and in stark contrast to Galloway – then – PM Sunak would rank himself as truly British in showing precious little concern about the plight of the Palestinian people.
Sunak and Starmer are protecting genocide not democracy.
Reza,
” Sunak and Starmer are protecting genocide not democracy.”
Could not agree more.
Courtenay
“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.”
Aided and abetted by the money-is-your-god right-wing media of the UK and perverse Atlanticism that spews out all things socialist are evil to such an extent that the destablising of socialist governments around the globe has been going on for decades.
In the 90s, when my country was going through difficult times, one poet compared it to the sea, himself to a fish (a very poor fish that doesn’t even have money to cover its nakedness), and of course in this sea there are rich Sturgeons, and of course in it there are Fishermen.
I thought that Britain is an island state, so the analogy with the sea might be close to you. If I’m allowed to offer the lyrics, and if you kindly excuse the poor rhyme, I’m not a very skilled translator:
Across the sea, across the waves,
Here today, and there tomorrow,
I splash in the sea all day long
Showing my bare ass to the fishermen.
For a madhouse to exist it takes crazy people.
For fishing to exist it takes Fishermen.
And I’m a fish, and I’m a fish without panties.
Early in the mornings
I don’t miss making a face at Sturgeon
Because all this week his girlfriend
Has been spawning with red caviar
So, I’ve got lot of enemies
Among the pot-bellied Sturgeons.
And I’m a fish, and I’m a fish without panties.
I swim wherever I want,
And I’m not silent – I sing!
The globe does not spin on its own –
I’m the one who spins it.
Let the waves flow in the sea
As long as the earth spins.
I swim to the surface
And I see the mast of a ship.
A pirate is on board,
He smokes strong tobacco,
He’s the head of counterintelligence
And also an MP.
He can do what we can not,
All minds tremble before him,
He can command winter to come in July
With one stroke of his pen!
He will save his friend from his other friend,
He’ll give his pants to a homeless,
He’ll release the innocent from prison,
If he considers it necessary.
Sometimes I think
That I’m a guinea pig,
Common striped guinea pig.
I’m allowed to be kicked,
I’m allowed to be eaten,
But before that,
Before that try to catch me.
(c) Alexander Vasilyev, rock band Splean
Reza,
” Sunak and Starmer are protecting genocide not democracy.”
Could not agree more.
Courtenay
Tatyana,
“A pirate is on board,”
And indeed the pirate’s name is ‘hegemony’ and ‘ imperialism’.
What say you about Mr. Hegemonic Imperialism?
Thank you Tatyana for that moving poem.
On the below.
“and of course in this sea there are rich Sturgeons”
There’s a rich Sturgeon in Scotland (Ex-FM Nicola Sturgeon) who sold the country out (Scotland) for her and her party’s (and others, US/England’s) benefit. She wasn’t the first though: plenty so-called Scots have sold out Scotland for self-interest ahead of the country’s people.
Scotland will never prosper until it dissolves the union.
RoS, you’re welcome 🙂
I know about your Sturgeon, and I know about your Salmond 🙂 When I was listening to the Spleen recently, I came across this song and had fun all day long with this “fishy” verse, remembering your politicians.
By the way, there is more than one pun, since it’s known that Sturgeons spawn with black caviar, and Salmon lay red caviar. Of course, it may also be a hint at adultery, or an allegory on Communism. In any case, the author has plenty of reasons to mock Sturgeons.
Song of the blackbird
Oh blackbird
In the dark-blue clouded dusk of evening
Do you mourn the russet leaves
and the fallen petals of the drizzled cherry-blossom trees ?
Are you aggrieved ?
Or do you sing in praise, the clusters of the frothy fullness
Bounty of the bees bouquets ?
Oh singer of this song, for all us passing by
To pause beneath the diadem, as stars gather in the sky,
Will your song continue in the darkness of the night ?
Rain and blossoms gently fall
The colours changing hue
I marched for Palestine today
What more could. I do ?
9th March 2024
But since our mentor currently cures his bronchitis somewhere in Greece, let’s honor him through a local poem about democracy…
Year followeth year, in ceaseless train,
Another just hath flown;
And still we seek redress in vain,
Still ‘neath our burdens groan;–
Still labour on from morn till eve
For pittance bare;—and what receive
When youth and strength are gone?
The stinted dole—the pauper brand
Poor aliens in our native land!
Think not, ye men of lust and spoil,
These things may long remain;–
Our’s the ne’er-ending sweat and toil,
And thine the hard-earned gain,
That we shall, in by-corners laid,
Starve ‘midst the wealth ourselves have made,
Or beg in piteous strain
For the mere scraps from off the board
Which we have with its plenty stored:
That ragged, shoeless, in the mire,
Or ‘neath the wintry sky,
Wrung by the thoughts our wrongs inspire,
In vain shall be our cry!
In purple and fine linen clad
Though naught to you the poor and sad,
Who homeless round ye lie–
There’s One, though negatived by thee,
To whom the poor in sorrow flee.
O God! To Thee we lift our voice
With want and misery low,
Clasp our hard hands, and dare rejoice
For once: for well we know
That though Thou see’st fit to delay
The effluence of Thy perfect day,
Its gifts shall surely flow
And, to obscure Thy glorious skies,
Our torment’s smoke shall cease to rise!
There are also several nice poems in ancient Greek, but it might take a few years to read them, unless you had the appropriate education.
Conversely, I fully rely on Tatyana to translate into Russian. Our beloved friends there deserve to follow the whole story…
I don’t want to translate such poems. Here the author is unhappy with the human community, and shifts the solution to a God. Logically, this shifting of responsibility to external forces and such a “method” simply will not lead to the desired result.
By the way, I have a personal theory if you want to listen 🙂
I believe that in primitive human societies, religion was shamanism/paganism, that is, special importance was attached to the forces of nature. The leaders of primitive communities were alpha males, that is, the largest, strongest, healthiest member of the community. Other members of the tribe quite naturally expressed their subordination to the leader, praising precisely these qualities of his – strength, health, body size.
Thus, these praises can be reduced to the formula (for simplicity) “The forces of nature generously gifted our leader, in fact, that is precisely why he is a leader”.
Which, in principle, is nothing more than a truthful statement of a fact that exists in reality, expressed only with a faint shade of a pagan religious worldview (or, with artistic exaggeration, which will later develop into Literature).
Over time, human societies develop, invent technology, becoming less dependent on the forces of nature, learning to survive and preserve themselves in conditions that were previously impossible. Monotheistic religions also appear, where God is an abstraction. And dynastic monarchies appear, where the “leader” can be an ugly, stupid and sick heir. But since God has long been an abstract concept in the minds, few people now think that the forces of nature did not endow this monarch with either strong immunity, or strong mental qualities, or good genetics, or the ability to produce healthy offspring – anything that could benefit the ‘tribe’.
The primitive formula for recognizing a leader takes on a mystical meaning, somewhat uh… to put it politely… f*cking divorced from reality.
In an effort to preserve their power and property, monarchical dynasties inevitably merge with the church and jointly carry out indoctrination of the population. Literally, the idea is introduced into consciousness that the monarch rules because God wants it so.
Of course my description is exaggerated, but you can easily see that the coronation of your king is performed by your chief priest. A large number of people in your country agree to a monarchy (and if you ask them why, they most probably answer that this is Tradition and they like traditions), and thereby they recognize the right of monarchs to own and control huge amounts of land, resources, property, and also influence global decisions on behalf of the entire nation.
So you see, I don’t want to translate the poem. Instead of complaining to an abstraction, the author could have done something real. It’s like going to a protest – doesn’t change anything, but you can pat yourself on the back and feel a little better. If prayers to God or protests could have any effect, they would be banned.
And yet, JimA doesn’t believe in Ai…
If you don’t believe in God,
If you don’t believe in Democracy,
If you don’t believe in Ai,
Go f#$& yourself
and some people believe that they can give advice to others about who should f*ck whom 🙂 as you can see, the world of beliefs is large and diverse, everyone is free to choose something for themselves from there.
Rock on, Tatyana. More poetry is always a good thing.
Jams O’Donnell
I don’t mind bringing here more poetry, but I reserve the right to separate real and unreal things.
I mean, I’m a jeweler and I make supplies for jewelry makers. When I need to make a four-component solder with necessary liquidus/solidus parameters, I involve chemistry, physics, mathematics and analytics. I can’t throw a dragon’s tooth and a snake’s ass into a crucible, pray to some God and hope for a great result, can I? It’s just not how it works in reality.
But also I have a rather good understanding of artistry and creativity. Like this weekend my husband and I had a cool road trip, with a visit to a Christian water spring, a shooting range and a winery (haha, someone might say it’s a typical Russian weekend church-weapons-alcohol). My husband picked a dandelion for me and I’m now drying it between the pages of a book so that later I can make an imprint of it on a silver plate and turn it into a personal souvenir.
You know, perhaps this is my last spring, because the war is going on and it is escalating.
So, I live in reality and I can tell real things from unreal ones.
—
In case Rosemary visits here, can I please leave a photo of a cute cat we met at the winery
https://pikabu.ru/story/smotri_kakoy_kot_11223054
I found an excellent poem, from the professional recognized poet Pushkin, written in 1831, but still quite relevant today.
ODE TO DEFAMERS OF RUSSIA
translation by Vyacheslav Chetin
What’s that you’re trumpeting about, calumniators?
How come you threaten us with excommunication?
What has enraged you? Lithuanian unease?
Forget it: this is Slavic beef among their kindred,
Domestic ancient squabble, fate has long since figured,
A puzzle, you don’t have whatever chance to read.
These here contiguous tribes already
Have long been feuding up to now;
Each party, be it ours or theirs,
Bent under gathering storm clouds.
Who’ll stand the ground when odds are heavy:
A haughty Lech? A faithful Russ?
The question is if Slavic floods will ever
Blend in the Russian sea or it’ll reduce.
Leave us alone: you’re unacquainted
With suchlike bloody sacred tablets;
This family, domestic feud
Is alien, obscure to you;
For all you care, Prague or Kremlin;
Instead, you’re foolishly entranced
By daring courage of a melee –
And, frankly, you are hating us…
Why? On the grounds that, on the ashes
Of blazing Moscow, we refused
To buy the power of the brash, who
You trembled underneath, subdued?
Respond: because we sent the idol,
Who’d been predominating kingdoms, to abyss,
Thus having paid with our lifeblood
For Europe’s freedom, state and peace?..
To hear you talk, you’re tough; then test yourselves in action!
As if an aged hero, calm in relaxation,
Can’t fix his Ismailian bayonet to a gun;
As if the word of Russian tsar is but a trinket
Or brawls with Europe any different
Or Russians out of form to overcome.
As if we’re few; as if from Taurida to Perm reels,
From ardent Caucasus to Finnish chilly skerries,
From Kremlin, shaken to the core,
Up to the walls of quiescent China
The Russian soil will never rise up
And scintillate with her steel thorns.
Then send your bellicose descendants,
Defamers, over to our place!
There’s room enough, in Russian grasslands,
Among deserving of them graves.*
—
*In other translation it was:
In Russia’s plains there’s room to slumber,
And well they’ll know their brethren’s graves!
Actually, the last line in Pushkin is “There’s a place for them in the fields of Russia, Among the coffins that aren’t alien to them”, as it was short after the Napoleon war.
The poem is addressed to the deputies of the French Chamber (Lafayette, Maugin, etc.) and to French journalists who defiantly expressed sympathy for the Polish uprising in Russia and called for armed intervention in Russian-Polish hostilities.
‘Angry Europe is attacking Russia for the time being not with weapons, but with daily, frenzied slander. Constitutional governments want peace, and the younger generations, excited by the magazines, demand war’ – Pushkin wrote to Benckendorff. 193 years have passed since, and we still see the same 🙂
As Craig said/interjected, the reality is that the electorate have consistently voted for establishment parties during the past forty-five years, since 1979. And when the electorate are misguided enough to vote for socialists, then the PTB just abolish their right to vote (17 million people) by abolishing the institutions, in this case the GLC and the six Metropolitan County Councils. Needless to say, they would not have been abolished if they had been controlled by the Tories or right-wing Labour administrations, the point being that who but fascists would take away people’s democratic rights (under false pretences, of course). And the amount of smearing and demonisation of Ken Livingstone and the GLC under his leadership by the right-wing press (spear-headed by the London Evening Standard) probably comes second to what JC was later subjected to.
And the following from Neil Kinnock’s resignation speech after the LP was defeated in 1992 summed it up perfectly:
« There will be many opportunities to consider the causes and consequences of last Thursday’s election result. I will not dwell on them here.
I will content myself, for the moment, with drawing attention to the words of the former treasurer of the Conservative Party, Lord McAlpine, in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph:
“The heroes of this campaign,” said Lord McAlpine, “were Sir David English, Sir Nicholas Lloyd, Kelvin McKenzie and the other editors of the grander Tory press. Never in the past nine elections have they come out so strongly in favour of the Conservatives. Never has their attack on the Labour Party been so comprehensive… This was how the election was won, and if the politicians, elated in their hour of victory, are tempted to believe otherwise, they are in real trouble next time.”
Lord McAlpine could not be expected to acknowledge the degree of misinformation and disinformation employed in the attacks on the Labour Party, but in all other respects his assessment is correct……
I make and I seek no excuses, and I express no bitterness when I say that the Conservative-supporting press has enabled the Tory Party to win yet again when the Conservative Party could not have secured victory for itself on the basis of its record, its programme or its character.
The relationship between the Conservative Party and those newspapers which Lord McAlpine describes as being edited by “heroes” is a fact of British political life. »
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/14/neil-kinnock-resigns-labour-leader
The first salvo – albeit a few weeks before the general election was called – was the front-page Sunday Times story entitled “Kinnock’s Kremlin Connection” when Andrew Neil was at the helm, which he shared (it was hardly something he ‘leaked’) to his mates in the rest of the rabid right-wing press at some point prior to the Sunday, so that THEY could get their (faux) condemnation in the day before.
When the US blew up Nordstream, they must already have had Gaza — and the genocide — in their plans.
I am not sure that the ruling class are panicking, Sunak used the occasion so that he can introduce some more legislation to curb free speech, And meanwhile the establishment is busy grooming the other side of the coin, Starmer’s labour, to continue the good work.
Meanwhile yet another revolting scandal has broken out, the Frank Hester very openly racist and misogynist and even hateful speech has resurfaced. Labour is not really concerned about the feelings of Dianne Abbott who has been harmed and abused but are merely using the opportunity to embarrass the conservatives and get them to auto defund by returning the donated money from Hester and his company, something they will never do.
But the biggest scandal of all is this: Hester’s company supplies the contract for various electronic platforms for the NHS and therefore Hester has a vested interest in more and more contracts from the NHS from the Tories. In effect what this translates to is that Tories get Hester and his company to profit from the NHS then these profits are recycled back to the Tories to the tune of 10-15 m pounds. Is this sleaze or what? Apparently this is how great democracies work and no one bats an eyelid. Meanwhile poor Dianne Abbott is not even called to speak for her self in Parliament by the gatekeeper speaker who is a great mate of Starmer, and who only a few days ago bent the rules to get his mate off the hook by manipulating the Gaza parliamentary vote.
SA
That is how AIPAC works.
The Americans fund Israel – Israel then funds the Israeli Lobby groups and the Lobby Groups buy the Senators and most of Congress.
The thing is – will Starmer if he wins divest this racist of his interests in the NHS? I think I can safely say – no he won’t.
Meanwhile though the BBC is still not sure whether Hester is a racist – or just a little rude? Dianne Abbot has reported the matter to the police – It should come under the auspices of a Hate Crime.
The law says it is – not one of Michael Gove’s ‘Designations’.
p.s. the BBC and Sky news this morning spoke of a ‘ Military Operation ‘ in the hospital in Gaza City.
The BBC presenter initially called it an “attack” and ten minutes later that word was dropped back to an operation. I wonder if this was an Israeli ‘Special Operation?’, as in the Russian one.
Galloways win can only translate to meaningful shift if there is a breakaway new socialist party offering a real alternative. If such a party could be conjured up all those who have voted against Labour and Tories in this bye election which is more than 60% would vote as a neither Labour nor Tory vote. If this could be translated to similar results in many seats across the country it would certainly deprive the smug Starnerites of their assurance to win the election and maybe even have a hung parliament. But is there a sufficient number of left wing politicians with political means and backing to be able to form such a party. This has happened in other countries such as in Greece, although unfortunately it did not translate to a long term change as the rest of the EU made sure that the experiment was doomed to failure.
About a week ago, I heard Galloway say that he already had 300 volunteers to run as self-funded Workers Party candidates for Parliament.
Very interesting as always. The fact that almost all corners of the establishment seem to be orchestrating an “inevitable” Starmer win at the next election, citing the opinion polls, is in itself very suspect. My rule of thumb at general elections is to never vote for the party trumpeted by the mainstream newspapers, and I feel that will hold good next time too.
I campaigned vigorously for the Jeremy Corbyn Labour Party in 2017 and 2019 General Elections.
I was knocking on doors in the normal canvassing teams. I also organised several sessions where we went to weekend markets to engage with people (I have a theory that you can engage with more people in the time available, and it’s neutral ground). Although this isn’t a scientific analysis, I talked to many hundreds of people, on all sorts of subjects.
In 2017 I didn’t have a single convo about antisemitism. Not one.
In 2019 I had some (20?) really unpleasant and acrimonious discussions with people who believed the Labour Party was full of antisemites. It was impossible to explain that was totally, completely wrong. Lots of people were also less friendly and muttered things like, “No time for antisemites”, then closed the door.
The only difference is that the media were banging on about this. It showed how powerful the media are in shaping the “Overton Letterbox” (good one Craig).
It is the profound failure of Jeremy that he is non-confrontational. He should have sued everyone who put forward these lies. One of Galloway’s strengths is that he quickly resorts to legal action when people tell lies about him, and this has made the scum of the media wary of doing so.
It was not only the press and not only being non-confrontational but his refusal to take full control of the party and discipline dissenters. It is well known how Jeremy was undermined from inside the party in many ways. The first thing that Starmer did was to fully control the party.
Expose Keir Starmer in his claim that it is legal for Israel to starve Gaza. He must never gain power to govern Britain.