The leadership of genocide enthusiast Keir Starmer – who is still supporting arms sales to Israel and the “Israeli right to self-defence”, who still refuses to acknowledge one single Israeli war crime – cost the Labour Party dear in Blackburn in the local elections.
The result means I am very likely to win the parliamentary seat.
The Blackburn Independent Councillors, who resigned from Labour over Gaza and invited me to stand as their parliamentary candidate, were re-elected and took new seats. They did not gain control of the council only because this was an election for just one third of Blackburn with Darwen’s council seats. The council has annual elections by thirds.
The parliamentary seat is no longer contiguous with the council area, with Darwen now excluded. The result inside my parliamentary seat was an even more convincing win for the Independents.
I put Muntazir Patel’s stunning result in Shear Brow and Corporation Park first, because this is where the cover photo of my book “Zionism is Bullshit” was shot.
When I stood against the war criminal Jack Straw in Blackburn in 2005, his Labour/BAE fixer Lord Ahmed Patel ensured I was excluded from the mosques and community events there, so I stood outside in the street on a Friday canvassing. That is the cover shot. Muntazir has now swept the area against Labour.
I am sure we can win. I am going to be very honest. When I accepted the joint offer from the Independent Councillors and the Workers Party of Great Britain to fight the seat, I did not then think we could really win. I accepted on the basis that, if we gave Labour a hard fight in Blackburn, they would be forced to divert resources they could otherwise concentrate on attacking George Galloway in nearby Rochdale.
So my strategy was to help George get re-elected by tying up Labour and by adding to the feeling of a real new working class movement across the North West and elsewhere in England.
I say this without shame.
Under the first past the post system, on average less than 100 seats change hands at a UK parliamentary election. That means in only at most 150 seats are there two candidates who might realistically win. In the other 500 seats there is normally only one candidate likely to win, and the six or so other candidates know they are fighting a losing battle.
So out of about 5,000 candidates in a British parliamentary election, only 800 normally are going to win or to come a close second. Others are standing to advance their arguments and to give voters a choice. Of course few candidates ever admit they do not expect to win.
I now do expect to win. We now know that the revolt against Starmer – accelerated by Gaza, but also by his leading the Labour Party so far to the right they are in all crucial policies indistinguishable from the Tories – is very real.
Starmer is the chosen one of the Establishment, and the media are bigging up his mild gains in the local council elections. But in fact Labour achieved only 35% of the vote nationally in England and Wales, which is one of their worst results and below the average result Labour obtained in national local government and general elections under Corbyn.
I shall be one of a number of candidates standing to give voters a genuine choice of more left wing policies at home and an end to perpetual war and support for Zionism abroad. Those candidates will include Jeremy Corbyn, George Galloway, Andrew Feinstein, Peter Ford, Monty Panesar and others. The informal alliance is growing and bonds are being knit. I hope by election day all voters in England will be offered a left wing, anti-war choice for their vote.
The media and political parties are doing their best to hide the desire for such a choice. But at the English local elections 37% of those who voted, did not vote either Labour or Tory. That is huge. The narrative being spun that those who did not bother to vote are actually enthusiastic Labour or Tory supporters and this will change in a general election with a higher turnout, does not stand up to ten seconds’ serious consideration.
I look forward to having the chance to tell a number of very hard truths in the House of Commons, and to help offer real opposition to the Blue and Red conservative parties. But I need now to take very seriously indeed the role of representing, supporting and improving the lives of all the people of Blackburn. I shall therefore shortly be moving to live full time in the constituency.
I have a lot to give, but also a very great deal to learn from Blackburn people. I approach that with determination and humility.
I judge that the public revulsion at the genocide in Gaza has now made it very difficult for the police to continue to hound me over my support for Palestine, and of course mad Suella Braverman is no longer Home Secretary. Two very brief test visits did not see me arrested again, so I shall now return from exile to run for Parliament. It is a risk I need to take.
When I stood in Blackburn in 2005 against Jack Straw, against the Iraq War and the excesses of the “War on Terror”, many scores of readers of this blog turned up in the town to campaign for me.
We will need you all again, now alongside solid and enthusiastic local support – and this time we are going to win!
————————————————
Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]
Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB
Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a
He is a human rights lawyer, man of great integrity etc only in the distinctive British understanding. I do not see his appeal extending beyond national boundaries.
I don’t see his appeal extending beyond the paid cadres who populate the corridors of power – the insider’s insider.
You remember the documentary “The Lobby”, produced by Al Jazeera around 2017? I can recall many bit players hovering around the honey pot – unsung villains all. One was a Parliamentary researcher who seemed to be working for the Israeli government whilst being paid by Britain – nice work if you can get it. It is amongst these sort of Britons that Starmer’s qualities are the ones you list – to some of the rest he is a smarmy phoney and to others he is an unprosecuted criminal – Spycops and no prosecution of Savile are amongst the many other amoral outrages he is personally responsible for.
Now he shouts from the rooftops about Israel, seemingly unaware that killing people is wrong to most of Earth’s inhabitants. I have in the past called him a moral degenerate but I was wrong. This is no degeneration this is his “morality”
Good news at last. Thank you for all your efforts. I would love to see you win at the GE, but above all I want to see Starmer defeated in Holborn and St Pancras.
The most important thing to do, RIGHT NOW, is to make sure that all eligible young voters (that means age 18 and over) get themselves registered to vote, and acquire photo ID to enable them to vote on election day.
Forgot to add – all those who might become eligible whenever the election is held, so 17 year olds as well.
Realistically the best we can hope for is a hung parliament. The defeat of Starmer, although highly desirable, could mean a tory win or an unlikely Liberal win – both giving us more of the same.
As they say, be careful what you wish for.
If a pretend peace is achieved in Gaza then the mindless masses will forget it and move onto the next fashionable topic, Immigration. The tories won last time on a, fake, promise of brexit. Any similar promises on Immigration are similarly fake, but will appeal to the masses.
Fair point Stevie Boy but I am not sure that we live in a world where the word “realistically” has any meaning.
This change has come because of genocide in Gaza.
Who would of thought that tens of thousands of civilians could be murdered on livestream and the people who “claim” to represent us politically don’t see it. They claim authority to discuss, legislate even, on matters of morality and “appropriacy”.
The political milieu in Britain is a “kingdom of the blind”. It used to have the one-eyed kings the proverb alludes to but not anymore.
For me it is the old cliché writ large – things will never be the same again.
Oh ‘they’ can see the genocide for sure. The fact is they don’t care, they have no skin in the game. Or rather, the game is good for their bottom line, money and power.
The majority of politicians are total scumbags, remember that if you vote.
Never voted Stevie Boy. I will this time though, just sent off for some photo ID so I can.
I have no opinion on the daily grind of politicians that could be printed or shared. My engagement has come from this business in Palestine.
British “democracy” needs reform – above all other issues. We need to remove the Zionists from the political process, or at least pass legislation that criminalise’s Zionism and those who support it. Zionism is the world’s premiere terrorist ideology and its supporters are terrorists sympathisers and enablers. I can draw no other conclusion.
Here I stand; I can do no other.
Immigration is the issue that the left ignore and have allowed nutcases like Reform to dominate the conversation. It’s about time we actually accepted it IS an issue to many people and calling them racists isn’t going to win them over. It’s the fact that the Tories did nothing about immigration levels that Reform have made such gains
Sky I find it odd the the Tories the trad anti-immigrant party have been in power for years lol
“Starmer defeated in Holborn and St Pancras”
Neil you provoke visions in me. For a moment, when I read the above, I saw his face, as clear as day, as the Returning Officer announced his defeat!
Same here,
😀 Indeed! Good news at last!
– “Starmer is the chosen one of the Establishment, and the media are bigging up his mild gains in the local council elections. But in fact Labour achieved only 35% of the vote nationally in England and Wales, which is one of their worst results and below the average result Labour obtained in national local government and general elections under Corbyn.”
…and that under an utter collapse of the Conservative vote.
Here is a short interview with Keir on this topic:
In an interview after the West Midlands mayoral elections that was won by Labour, party leader Keir Starmer said that he is determined to win back the trust and confidence of the people who are not voting for Labour because of Keir Starmer’s stance on Israel’s war on Gaza
https://twitter.com/MiddleEastEye/status/1787103534829166782
He cannot even address the core issue of him supporting cruel mass murdering in Gaza and therefore losing votes. And he is a human rights lawyer… If only the lawyers of nazi germany could witness this, they would be envious of Starmer’s callous, audacious propaganda and doublethink.
Summary of Starmer’s response, translating politician-speak into English:
“We will listen to people’s concerns, and then ignore them.”
Or “We will listen to people’s concerns about the killing and then continue the killing”
We will pretend to listen
We will listen to pretenders.
Thing is, Fazal, when people pretend too much, they become a joke, their words mean nothing.
If you remember the old tale, “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” (a shepherd lad who made himself important by shouting the word “wolf” and causing lots of bother to his sheep farming community) – after some false alarms people just laughed at him.
This is Zionism – cry terrorism and then carry out acts of terror. It has gone on so long it has become a transparent laughing stock to a growing number of voters and a grave (often violated) or displacement for its victims.
I have every confidence Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, MP for neighbouring Chorley will afford you every opportunity to educate the Parliament on the evils of Zionism.
Oh, that’s the nurse at the door with my medication.
Maybe there should be a break with convention by someone standing against Hoyle.
Only the 2 main parties observe the convention anyway; the Greens and an independent stood against him in 2019.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle has said some spectacularly stupid things, e.g. he described the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II as “the most important event the world will ever see”.
Booting him out wouldn’t achieve much, though. Parliament is stuffed with pompous mediocrities; I doubt that any likely replacement would be an improvement.
Disagree Townsman, booting him out could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back – after all we are talking about demographics here aren’t we?
It is hard to imagine how such a large majority could be overcome, unless one found just the right candidate.
I can think of at least one person who can unlock this door.
Yes, the MSM emphasised the results, not the turnout, in the elections.
The Tory vote collapsed, Labour won on a worse turnout and independents got generally good turnouts.
The reality is that Starmer has no great support and the Tories hardly any. Those who predict a hung Parliament may well be right.
The Independents would NOT have gained control of the Council had it all been up for election rather than just one third.
Independents won 8 seats, Labour 7 & Conservatives 2 which scales up to Independents 24, Labour 21 & Conservatives 6.
Independents would have been the largest grouping but not in control. In this hypothetical situation would Labour have cooperated with them or worked with the Tories to keep the Independents out of power in the same way the Unionist parties have often teamed up to stop SNP controlling Scottish Councils?
For readers’ information, the actual make-up of the Council after its “one third” election is Labour 29, Independents 13, Conservatives 9.
Indeed – I am remembering how wonderful the Lib Dems were when they gained so many seats they held the power balance and could have joined with Labour but instead chose to join with the Tories. This betrayal of all that they stood for was the cause of the current decline of Britain from beacon of democracy to industrial decline and inner city destitution under the Tories. Finding the Money is the number one documentary in the US. It has taken Australia and Europe by storm. Here it is still ridiculed for offering an insight into how the nation is being fleeced. It will take commitment to get a coherent economic policy to address the corporate takeover of our shareholder-controlled economy. The arms companies are doing very well under Cameron’s leadership and pretending we need to starve the poor even more to satisfy them is a heinous lie. The political landscape is very uneven just now and fragmentation is a hazard.
What? Britain a “beacon of democracy” where getting 44% of the votes cast results in a huge absolute majority in Parliament?
You must be using some definition of the word “democracy” that I’m unfamiliar with.
There has never been a democratically-elected British government.
” I am remembering how wonderful the Lib Dems were when they gained so many seats they held the power balance and could have joined with Labour but instead chose to join with the Tories. ”
I am remembering how the Lib Dems gained so many seats that they were seen as a threat to the status quo. It wasn’t by chance that they then adopted policies that nearly destroyed the party. Clegg’s job, for which he was rewarded with a plush post at Meta, was to bring the Lib Dems into the Tory Party, just as Stürmer’s job was to do the same with Labour. Isn’t choice wonderful? You can now vote for blue, yellow or red Tories at the general election.
I saw a clip of Clegg “meeting the public” and a youngster asked him if he was worth his million pound salary. 5 secs of “Tumbleweed” and his minders broke it all up – I guess this “public” was not supposed to contain any of the public lol!
The results are actually even more complicated than that. I thought I’d tally up the votes in the twelve council wards that make up the Blackburn Constituency according to the Council website:
Blackburn Independents (7 candidates elected from 10) 9,933 (41.8%)
Labour (3 elected from 12) 7,998 (34.7%)
Conservatives (1 elected from 12) 3,851 (16.7%)
Other Independents (1 elected from 3) 1,000 (4.3%)
Greens (0 elected from 3) 556 (2.4%)
(Lib Dems seem to have vanished this year). The complication is the Other elected councillor, Tiger Patel. Like the Blackburn Independents he resigned from his party over Gaza, but in his case it was from the Conservatives not Labour, and he’s not a member of the group. Indeed they stood a candidate against him (Esat as shown in the image for the Little Harwood result above). According to press reports he also sees himself standing for parliament. He clearly has a substantial personal vote in at least two wards (he switched wards this election) though how much that would transfer is another matter.
The other thing to take into account, as always when comparing local and national results, is differential turnout. In the eight wards Independents won, it average 35.9% (up from 28.4% in 2023). In the other four only 21.9% (slightly down from 22.3%). But in a general election voters who aren’t as energised by Gaza will be more likely to vote on other issues.
Would dearly love to hear you speak under the aegis of Parliamentary Priviledge.
God speed and God bless. The ziombies are advancing and there are very few fighters stemming the tide. They have vastly more resources and have roped in gays who command a good part of both the state and private media. It’s only a matter of time before TikTok and X are silenced. Really the only hope is a hung Parliament where PR may be pushed through, otherwise we are going to end up in permanent rule by FOIs on either side of the fence. Or as GG is wont to say, two lanes going in the same direction along one hershey highway.
The political (and economic actually) world is a very confusing place at the moment. I am pleased that finally there seem to be cracks appearing in the two-party monolith; the downside being that I am faced with too many choices of new allegiance to those with whom I don’t fully agree with their opinions and actions. In your case Craig, if you’re interested, I am somewhere between half and two-thirds positive about you. Whatever, you are standing up and taking action towards making the world a better place and I am a mere keyboard warrior, so kudos for that.
I think it is truly despicable that anyone considering standing for democratic election should have to factor in to their decision “but will I be arrested if I do”.
I wouldn’t wish being arrested on Craig, but, if he is, that may improve his electoral chances.
Sinn Fein in the parliamentary election of 1918 ran on the slogan, “Vote for the Man in Gaol” and won a landslide in Ireland.
Debs was killed by his incarceration, never the same. They schooled him.
Good luck to you Craig.
I do like the title of your book. Punchy, straight to the point and 100% accurate. It IS bullshit. Made me smile.
Give them hell.
ps parliamentary privilege… wow never thought about that… interesting.
Craig, 👍👍 from Germany!
I’ll chime in here, from The Netherlands. 👍👍
From a South African right winger, I wish you, Craig, all the success in the world. You and George Galloway are the only honest voices in a sea of political lies.
Based on the local election results, Labour getting only 34-35% (never a winning percentage), Sky were predicting a hung parliament on Friday. It seems the BBC have managed to ignore/suppress such a possibility until this morning when it was incidentally dropped into the conversation on the Today programme along the lines of “some people seem to be saying … “.
A hung parliament with a significant Independent alliance showing would be a great result. It would provide a strong alternative voice in Parliament to add to Galloway’s. It would also mean that those voices would need to be taken more seriously and given more media coverage and air time. That would then provide a platform on which to begin building a stronger, new, independent party or alliance.
At last, a bead of light in the dark firmament.
Go Craig! All the very best to you, Mr Murray.
“a bead of light in the dark firmament”
Well said Peter and forgive me pointing out, your above statement also describes “the Big Bang” and we all know what happened there, a whole new universe! lol
Alternatively:
“Your highness, when I said that you are like a stream of bat’s piss, I only mean that you shine out like a shaft of gold when all around it is dark”
― Monty Python
” It would also mean that those voices would need to be taken more seriously and given more media coverage and air time.”
Any increase in media air time will doubtless be of the variety of last week’s interview with George on ITV’s ‘Good Morning Britain’. A disgraceful barrage of smears. Craig would get the same treatment. On the plus side looking through the YouTube comments on that interview I did not find a single comment that was not critical of the interviewers, and many that said that interview had persuaded the viewer to vote for the Workers Party.
“Any increase in media air time will doubtless be of the variety of last week’s interview with George on ITV’s ‘Good Morning Britain’. A disgraceful barrage of smears. Craig would get the same treatment.”
Indeed, that will most certainly be the case.
Any new formation of the left would have to realise that their primary opposition will not be the Tories or the (so called) Labour Party but the whole establishment who, with phenomenal resources including control of the MSM, will throw everything at them – as Jeremy Corbyn found out.
But Galloway has shown how those attacks can be counteracted and your message got across despite the bs storm. Farage, for whom I have no sympathy, has also shown, from the right, that you don’t have to just kowtow to media interviewers but can reject their questions and the premises they’re based on and get your point across forcefully.
Best news for a long time.
Is the Worker Party of GB running a candidate against Lindsay Hoyle in neighbouring Chorley? This is essential. Fuck “Parliamentary convention”, Hoyle is most definitely not “neutral”. Hoyle has a 17,400 majority having seen off a challenge from a Green and an independent in 2019. Put the old, Zionist sock-puppet out on his ear along with his boss, Tel Aviv Keith.
Naughty, but nice…_
The answer is almost certainly yes, but hang on for an announcement. It’s a goodie.
That is two visions I have had today.
One courtesy of Neil – an image of K Starmer’s face after his constituency defeat
I assumed “a goodie” did not refer to Graham Garden Or Bill Oddie – and then it came – a face, a voice……
I’ll let you know if you were right when you announce it lol.
Excellent news. I look forward to seeing you winning this seat. I look forward even more to hearing you tell some hard truths in the Westminster cesspit.
It is refreshing to see a rational interpretation of the election data in Blackburn, this was sadly missing in such discussions on the BBC and in the popular press, which chose to ignore or minimise the significance of the election results in particular areas. I would add that as the turnout was small it may not be repeated in general election. I do hope that it is and that Blackburn will stand out as a example to us all by putting Craig in parliament. Vivian O’Blivion is right to point out that catching the speakers eye will not be easy. I look forward to seeing Craig on question time, raising the matter of proportional representation, boundary reform and a land tax.
Excellent news Craig, it looks like Lord Patel has stood many relatives and is fighting a backward we go battle.
He and his liar friend Straw will try everything to stand as many candidates as possible, to split the vote.
I hope to be able to lend a hand in one way or other, having been the election agent to Bushra Irfan, the first Independent Muslim woman to stand up in Blackburn.
The results are very promising, my only fear is that should their be a hung Parliament, ideally from the highest lamp post in Westminster, that we end up with a grand Zionist coalition of genocidal maniacs who will bring this country to the brink.
I am ready for whenever you want to start. Massive wall posters are made cheapest in Pakistan, apparently, but they need to be placed in the right spot and with a certified agreement from the house owner, it will stop police asking time consuming questions.
I will hopefully see you soon in Oxbury rd. my son is expecting his first child, lovely.
“we end up with a grand Zionist coalition of genocidal maniacs who will bring this country to the brink.”
Indeed, the red and blue wings of the Tory party may just say “Sod all this fake competition, we want power!”
An examination of Labours recent bye election ‘successes’, shows them to be nothing more than underwhelming.
They have tended to ‘win’ their ‘decisive victories’ with less votes than the last time they stood.
All the bruhaha over Labour’s results ignores the total collapse of Tory support.
Trust me, as an active member of the Labour Party, the majority of members honestly believe that the omnipotence of Neue Labour Zwei is blessed by God and his earthly representative St. Blair. The sad truth is that Keir Stormtrooper will probably become PM…_
Isn’t there a risk the party spreads its limited resources too thin? Fighting unwinnable constituencies?
Starmer’s sellout Labour party, are beatable, clearly, but they shouldn’t be underestimated, because they’re flush with private donor money. If you look like winning, they’ll throw everything they’ve got at you, by, among other things: flooding the area with canvassers, MPs and councillors from all over the UK; mass telephone and emailing of constituents; spreading vile rumours; mass leafleting and flyers. It’s a truism from US politics, that the less a party offers in terms of difference/change, the dirtier and more personal their attacks on opponents become. Hope you’re ready.
I’d imagine the security establishment want you in parliament – as a former insider, speaking truth to power – like they desire a hole in the head too. Far harder to paint someone as a whack job conspiracy theorist, when they have a platform to argue their case.
You don’t seem to realise that the Labour Party is constantly bombarding me with pleas for money, and to spend time campaigning elsewhere.
Internally, the Labour Party has a lot of resource problems…_
DiggerUK
The whole establishment, including media, will try to stop Craig. Paul Mason is already concentrating fire solely on Galloway’s party.
Having questioned various narratives over the years, including the bizarre Skripal story. The last thing the establishment will want is Mr Murray asking difficult questions of what will likely be Labour ministers, armed with Parliamentary privilege.
One of the most distressing aspects of the current Gaza Genocide is that over the past 7 months western political leaders have turned a blind eye to the massacres. And in the cases of the UK/US leadership in order to legally keep the arms flowing to Israel, have denied absolutely that any crimes have even happened. Every sentient human being on the planet knows that this is not true, and that the US/UK leadership are liars, this will not end well. Mr Murray’s acceptance of the challenge in Blackburn is much appreciated and a realization that the powers that be may break students bones, and control the MSM, but they can never break our spirits or humanity.
Noises inside the Labour Party seem to indicate that resignations from the Labour Party will probably step up a notch going forward. Remains to be seen if they get the Gorgeous George handshake and stand for WP in election.
https://labourlist.org/2024/05/keir-starmer-labour-party-momentum-co-chair-resigns/
I’ve never been enamoured by Momentum or the ‘Owen Jones’ of this world, but viable candidates against Labour support of the genocide, or refusal to condemn the genocide, is a needs must argument of support for the enemy of my enemy…_
“Under the first past the post system, on average less than 100 seats change …so other candidates know they are fighting a losing battle.” For voters the situation is even worse than this paragraph implies. In our ‘democracy’ the only voters who matter are floating voters in marginal seats, and our political parties know it.
I am assuming Labour will win in 2024, or at least be the largest party, but the election in 2028 will be a whole lot more interesting… Starmer is both unpopular and untrustworthy. That doesn’t sound like a recipe for long term success.
Here is my wider local elections round-up that was excised by the mods from the previous comments section for being OT – jumped the gun a bit there. (I focus on the minor parties, mainly because I’m bored to **** with the big ones):
Overall, Labour won 185 seats and control of 8 councils; the Tories lost 473 seats and lost 10 councils – the worst result for them for over 40 years. The Lib Dems & Greens gained 104 (plus two councils) & 74 councillors respectively.
According to analysis by the Beeb, in 58 wards with a Muslim population of more than 20%, Labour’s share of the vote was down by an average of 21 percentage points. Much of it will have gone to Galloway’s Workers’ Party of Britain, which gained four councillors: two in Rochdale, one in Calderdale (Halifax), and one in Manchester (Longsight). It already had two others from earlier defections. As our host has outlined above, the eight Independent Blackburn with Darwen councillors who resigned from Labour over its response to the horror in Gaza were re-elected. It was a similar story in Bradford.
Elsewhere, Reform UK gained its first two elected councillors (assuming you don’t include its Reform Derby chapter) in Havant. Nearby, the Women’s Equality Party (WEP) won its first ever seat above parish level in Basingstoke, whilst the newly-formed anti-trans, scrap the Gender Recognition Act, Party of Women came mostly last, and no higher than fourth, in the five northern/midlands seats it contested – shades of the Northern Independence Party (who didn’t stand a single candidate this time round) there methinks. (Note: the WEP support gender self-ID, so their relative success should provide food for thought for those who think that British women are all of the JKR/Won’t Weesht persuasion*.)
Fortunately, despite the best efforts of the Tory government to give them a massive open goal in the form of over a *million* new (legal) arrivals to these fair shores in the year to June, the British far-right continues to be an absolute shitshow: the British Democratic Party only fielded four candidates, and Britain First could only manage two. None of them got anywhere – although some did beat the Lib Dems & Greens. (Note: the BNP & National Front basically don’t exist anymore.) Contrast this with the situation in continental Europe. The Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition (TUSC) also did abysmally as per. Since the financial crisis, which I believe has caused some degree of economic hardship in the UK, there are still more candidates who’ve been elected to councils above parish level in England representing political parties with the words ‘Idle’ *and* ‘Toad’ in their names, than the word ‘Socialist’:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idle_Toad
* Personally, I think the law as it stands in the form of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 is a reasonably acceptable compromise, so obviously both sides don’t like me – but there’s nothing new there.
The attainment of political power very urgently needs to be more strictly regulated. Or to put it more neutrally, since ruthless, narcissistic people with a lack of empathy and conscience seem to be attracted to positions of power, surely we should take some measures to at least monitor and thereby empower voters to restrict their access to power?
Fortunately, psychologists have well developed mature tools to identify and measure these personality spectrums, and to what extent test subjects are ‘devoid of empathy with no conscience’ i.e. narcissistic / psychopathic / Machiavellianism the so-called ‘dark triad’ of ‘pathocracy’.
So, Craig, as a political candidate, I urge you now to undertake your own psychiatric personality tests and publish the results immediately, which would radically boost your laudable efforts and chances of securing the Blackburn parliamentary seat. This would give voters in Blackburn an extremely powerful and independent tool – a global first – to help them decide if a candidate appears a flawless work of angels or is the work of the devil?
Compared to candidates such as Starmer who’d almost certainly be afraid to reveal he’s likely amongst the personality types that are attracted to corruption and power, with low empathy and conscience, by refusing to publish his ‘dark triad’ / ‘pathocracy’ personality traits, something you’d be able to then constantly and publicly challenge and question him on during your campaigning for his Blackburn parliamentary seat.
And since you Craig hope to be one of a number of candidates in a growing informal alliance between whom bonds are being knit – all of you standing to give voters a genuine choice of more left wing anti-war choice for their vote – then let’s suggest they all publish their own ‘dark triad’ psychiatric personality tests results too and give voters in all their constituencies too the power to decide how far along the ‘pathocracy’ spectrum they will allow their representatives to be?
Fortunately, you and your growing informal alliance can do this very easily because many psychopathic / anti-social personality / sociopathic ‘tests’ are already in widespread public institutional use and have been widely written about in peer reviewed physiology journals, so we’re not asking anything extraordinary. For example, as a starter some prisoners have ‘personality tests’ on admission, such as the hare-psychopathy-checklist, and DSM-5: Antisocial Personality Disorder (Sociopathy).
Politicians volunteering to undergo and publish the results of their ‘tests’ along side their other campaigning material, would open up a badly needed widespread public conversation in the UK and globally to give voters a huge incentive to vote for a candidate prepared to ‘bare their soul’ as it were, providing very strong evidence they are an open honest empathic conscientious ballot box choice.
Your growing informal alliance would all be supported by ITV News’ political editor Robert Peston who in 2022 said some of Britain’s top political buffoons are “utterly ruthless” sociopaths and psychopaths, despite seeming to be respectable “pillars of establishment”.
But do psychologists have the ability and / or responsibility to help prevent ruthless, amoral people attaining positions of power?
Empathically yes to both questions. In recent years, the concept of a ‘dark triad’ has gained prominence, focusing on three ‘socially aversive’ traits – psychopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism. According to Paulhus and Williams (2002), although the traits are distinct constructs, they overlap to such an extent that they should be studied in combination. Research suggests that the ‘dark triad’ is strongly associated with a desire for dominance and power, and is significantly more common than normal at the level of upper-level management and CEOs – psychopathy and Machiavellianism, in particular (Hodson et al., 2009; Jones & Figueredo, 2013; Lee et al., 2013).
Further, the ex-politician and medical doctor David Owen – working with the psychiatrist Jonathan Davidson – developed a construct of a personality disorder that he termed the ‘hubris syndrome,’ which he believed heads of government are especially prone to (see tinyurl.com/psychmagowen). Owen and Davidson posited 14 characteristics of the hubris syndrome, most of which overlap with psychopathy and narcissistic traits. (In fact, Owen suggested that the syndrome could be seen as a sub-type of narcissistic personality disorder.) However, there are also criteria that specifically apply to politicians, such as ‘exhibits messianic zeal and exaltation in speech’, ‘conflates self with nation or organisation’, ‘displays the unshakable belief that he will be vindicated in that court’ and ‘displays incompetence with disregard for the nuts and bolts of policy-making’ (Owen & Davidson, 2009). Owen and Davidson suggest that these traits arise from the leadership role itself, along the lines of the ‘leadership trap’ I described earlier. At the same time, they suggest that such leaders were originally attracted to power by their narcissistic traits. Once in power, the traits became intensified and distorted, sometimes partly through the intake of alcohol and performance-enhancing drugs (Owen & Davidson, 2007).
https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-34/november-2021/problem-pathocracy
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/out-of-the-darkness/202404/the-roots-of-evil
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/out-the-darkness/202203/the-danger-dark-triad-leaders
http://web.archive.org/web/20200727163211/https://sites.google.com/site/flagenglish/why-we-should-psych-test-political-candidates—psychopath-test-all-policymakers
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=pathocracy&ia=web
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=politicians+psychopaths&t=ffab&ia=web
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/psychopath-mps-would-probably-kill-25855281
https://thepowermoves.com/snakes-in-suits/
https://www.learning-mind.com/hare-psychopathy-checklist/
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/02/psychopathic_behavior_and_leaders.html
https://bobmschwartz.com/2018/06/20/dsm-5-antisocial-personality-disorder-sociopathy/
https://newatlas.com/psychopath-brain-mri-study/50365/
https://modlab.yale.edu/news/could-brain-scan-diagnose-you-psychopath-guardian
https://nopsychos.wordpress.com/
https://veilofreality.com/2014/02/07/marianne-williamson-and-the-elephant-in-the-living-room/
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0401/S00031.htm
Thank the Lord that these psychopaths & sociopaths won’t be able to pretend that they’re not psychopaths & sociopaths on these psychiatric tests, Natasha. By the way, there will have been far more psychopaths & sociopaths in the parliaments of the 60’s & 70’s (not least because they were largely made up of people from a male, public school background), but I think it’s reasonable to say that, on balance, they produced better legislation than today*.
Having been a leading light in the SDP, which did little else other than usher in a decade of Thatcherism, Lord Owen of Plymouth might know more than most about hubris. The Ancient Greeks observed that hubris is often followed by nemesis – though it’s rare that such nemesis comes in the form of Screaming Lord Sutch:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_Bootle_by-elections
* Case in point: If you’re 18 with a valid Gender Recognition Certificate, you can get full gender-affirming surgery carried out privately in the UK (though you’ll have to wait years on the NHS) – and I believe you can get it done at 16 if you travel to places like Thailand. However, since 2022, you can’t get hymen reconstruction surgery legally carried out here at any age – and anyone helping you to get it done abroad (paying for the airfare for example) could face up to five years in clink.
Apparently, there is some sort gene combo centred around expressions of the “warrior” gene that causes psychopathy. The hypothesis offers the notion that brain deformity in psychopaths can be ameliorated in certain cases if the subject has experienced a long-term stable nurturing environment, both physically and mentally when they were a child, i.e. loved as a child.
They will experience most of the neural pathways suggested by the neurological model that psychopaths undergo but the love they have had as children activates subregions that, though subservient to the main line of thought, are able in all cases, seemingly, to reroute the psychopathic drive in the deformed brain into regions which produce behaviour which differs little from people who are not psychopaths.
I remember one case (I was one of the cleaners, lol) when the leader of a research team who were researching the causes of psychopathy discovered he was the subject of his own research! They had found a certain double expression of the “warrior” gene which left them confident this was the cause of the deformities in the brain of psychopaths. Casually they all scanned their own brains for a lark over time knowing they were hyper-functional brainy twats. Well whaddya know, the good professor was revealed to have the same brain deformities as all the subjects they had been studying! This led to several more years cleaning for me and they discovered that the double expression of the “warrior” gene that caused the brain deformities that lead to psychopathy could be “masked” by the conditions I describe above. There was a lot of other stuff – genotypes, phenotypes, probability curves, statistical expression, etc. etc. but I was transferred to cleaning the warehouse after a while, so l missed most of that.
Don’t get me started on the Hare checklist and clones – useful up to a point after that ambiguity on methodology and clinical motives proliferate.
P.S. most of the things you know, I don’t know and I will never know – I think this phenomenon is called “the human condition”, lol.
You appear to miss the point: whatever the pros or cons of whatever test is irrelevant, it’s simply the fact that if a candidate such as our host, Craig Murray, were to publish the results of his test (most easily one of already widely used verbal interviews with a psychiatrist) Craig could then force the issue as a debating point with Starmer, who would of course refuse to publish his own, and attempt to ridicule those other candidates who have, thereby forcing this issue of “what is the relative mental health of our MPs?” into desperately needed widespread public discourse.
Natasha l have given this matter a lot of thought. The thrust of your main comment is, for me, très sympathetique. You identify the prime political problem of our day and offer a powerful generalised solution to this problem – in all worlds other than this one I would be in supportive agreement and I have had similar thoughts over the time, though not as erudite or as informed as yours.
The world we live in now in the West, were money equals free speech is a highly specialised arrangement, recently established – it is a whole new ball game, epistemologically speaking and I wonder whether the “checklist” approach is undone by the this new development. The changes we are going through are undermining the dichotomies of subjective/objective truth amongst several other foundational concepts.
I feel what you suggest would result in a psychological arms race, in which “the big battalions” would inevitably triumph but this feeling is not certain, just probable.
That said, I see nothing wrong with sounding this powerful idea with those who have some experience of the dynamics of electoral politics, as you have by drawing attention to it here on Mr Murray’s website. It seems to offer a hand to decency tactically and strategically continue the project to disseminate this information as widely as possible across the broadest swathe of society, both are outcomes I would support.
I apologise if my tone seemed off: I was replying to Lapsed Agnostic who works in a lab and I have taken on a “heavenly mission” to provide as much levity as is possible, in these somewhat straitened virtual circumstances as an antidote to the disciplined rigours that they must undergo to produce the results required by such organised science activities.
Thanks for your reply Will. Psychopaths will be psychopaths whether they’ve experienced a ‘long-term stable nurturing environment’ as a child or not – it’s an innate condition. It’s sociopathy that is dependent to a large extent on external factors in people’s lives. In short: psychopaths are born; sociopaths are made.
Thanks for your reply Natasha (assuming it’s to me). I haven’t missed the point at all: If Starmzy were a psychopath (he’s almost certainly not*), he could just give fake answers in any psychiatric test. Most psychiatrists know a lot less about things than they think**, which is why one report from a prison psychiatrist revealed in court stated that a particular prisoner was severely mentally disturbed, whereas in another psychiatrist’s estimation, he was ‘clearly putting it all on to get special treatment.’ (I was on the jury – trying to keep a straight face).
* And he won’t be particularly attracted to corruption and power either or, inter alia, he wouldn’t have provided tens of thouands of pounds of free legal work for the ‘McLibel Two’, who actually did commit libel against McDonalds Corp. back in the 90’s. Unfortunately, he’s married to someone who I reckon could be a bit of a Lady Macbeth character and, as with all other senior politicians, the security services know what he’s been viewing on his Smartphone.
** As do you, but I’ve wasted more than enough time trying to set you straight about thermodynamics etc. on the forums
[“wasted more than enough time trying” = at least two logical fallacies ! … nonetheless, as a former physics & maths school teacher, & an industrial design (electronics) practitioner, I am confident in my understanding and application of thermodynamics – but please link elsewhere if you care to waste any more time! ].
Instead let’s instead, stick to the issue being discussed here 🙂 “If Starmzy were a psychopath” = another logical (straw person!) fallacy: the suggestion I am making is not whether or not any candidate at a political ballot is a “psychopath”. The suggestion (note: I am simply a messenger hence the copious links I give to support the message) is
a) what is their score on a ‘dark triad’ measure? And
b) will they publish it as a comparison to others on the ballot?
It is also a given that they would all take the same or similar ‘test’ rendering it of secondary importance to argue about the fidelity of any such test, as it is the ensuing public discussion concerning comparisons between different candidates’ results, which I am suggesting would act as an impetus to stimulate public debate about the mental health of our politicians.
Such a process, if led by someone like Craig Murray would be an incredibly powerful tool to begin an attempt at cleaning up politics by discouraging ‘dark triad’ individuals from obtaining power.
Simple.
If psychopathology isn’t a myth, what are its objective characteristics?
Thanks for your reply, Natasha. I think you need to look up the meaning of logical fallacy. As I’ve told you before, I have a first-class honours BSc degree in physics & chemistry (which featured several courses on thermodynamics) from a Russell Group university, as well as a PhD in chemistry. May I ask what higher qualifications you hold? As I’ve also told you, far more energy than the 19 terawatts humans currently consume can be provided from renewable sources, using devices made from raw materials that the Earth can readily supply. There’s no two ways about it.
It doesn’t matter what politicians’ score on any ‘dark triad measure’, because most of the ones who would score highly are capable of hiding these traits from others and giving the ‘right’ answers in tests, something they usually learn to do at an early age. Many psychopaths are even capable of concealing their true natures from their *own families* for decades. Case in point: the BTK killer, whose family still have trouble believing that he did the things he did:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Rader
Thanks for your reply Squeeth. The chief characteristics of psychopaths are a total lack of empathy for others (they tend to view human beings as most human beings view livestock); little fear (several of them end up killing themselves in childhood); and little in the way of other emotions (although most of them experience anger & disgust to a significant extent).
Lapsed Agnostic, Why are you corrupting the topic of both Craig’s original post, and now the topic of my original comment?
[Nonetheless, thanks for falling into the ‘appeal to authority fallacy’ trap yet again(!)
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/appeal-to-authority-fallacy/
If your ‘degrees’ mean anything in the real world, then why do you fail to reference with links your plainly misguided assertion its possible to expand twenty times larger than they are today, the wind (3%) & solar (2%) contribution to “the 19 terawatts humans currently consume”?
https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption
In contrast, here’s a link to one of my fully referenced essays
https://archive.org/details/atomichumanismthecasefornuclearpowerv1/mode/2up
Meanwhile, how do you propose to replace 40 times more energy-dense diesel with electricity in mining? Further, in 2019 the Natural History Museum calculated that the UK alone would need to consume just under two times the current total annual world cobalt production, nearly the entire world production of neodymium, at least half of the world’s copper production, and three quarters the world’s lithium to fulfil its ‘Net Zero Plans’ (not including the LGV and HGV fleets) in an open letter to the Committee on Climate Change in 2019.
So please DON’T bother wasting space and annoying moderators any further on this thread, as it’s THERMODYNAMICALLY impossible for wind & solar to replace fossil fuels and maintain a global population of 8 billion, if it were possible then it would already be being rapidly built out already, since there’s trillions of $£ waiting to be made if it were.]
Lapsed Agnostic: “It doesn’t matter what politicians’ score on any ‘dark triad measure’, because most of the ones who would score highly are capable of hiding these traits from others and giving the ‘right’ answers in tests…”
Whist no doubt true, irrelevant, since the proposal is simply to use the SAME tests that are already being used in state prisons and hospitals and by the private sector too in the UK, which provide valuable outcomes, or they wouldn’t still be using them routinely and daily. So whatever flaws and weakness you care to point to in such psychopathic / narcissistic / Machiavellian tests, applies already and nobody’s complaining much about their usefulness in those domains. Meaning any criticisms of such tests applied to a prospective politician would simultaneously be a criticism that would equally apply in all other domains. Rendering a refusal by a prospective political candidate to publish their test results, that MUST be administered by a team of qualified experienced registered doctors, as an attack on the use and validity of those tests as used every day in the UK by state institutions.
Thanks for your reply Natasha. You were the one who brought up your qualifications. Anyway, here’s a link about how to supply the entire world’s energy needs using renewable sources from the late Prof David Mackay of Cambridge University:
https://www.withouthotair.com/c30/page_235.shtml
By my back-of-fag-packet calculations, there are around 12 trillion tonnes of neodymium the uppermost kilometre of the Earth’s non-oceanic crust – that’s around 1500 tonnes for every person on the planet. It’s a similar story for copper, cobalt & lithium.
As I’ve previously informed you, petroleum diesel in mining equipment can be replaced with biodiesel. Around 10% of all the diesel currently sold in Europe for cars & trucks is biodiesel. It’s categorically *not* thermodynamically impossible for wind & solar to replace fossil fuels because every hour more energy arrives from the Sun than human beings use in a year. Renewables are currently being expanded at unprecedented rates. Of course, nuclear power can be used as a stopgap.
—
[ Mod: This exchange has drifted off topic. If anyone wants to continue the argument about energy sources, kindly do so in the discussion forum, either on a new thread created for the purpose or on the earlier thread ‘The Decline of Fossil Fuels and Limits of Renewable Energy‘. ]
“Thanks for your reply Squeeth. The chief characteristics of psychopaths are a total lack of empathy for others (they tend to view human beings as most human beings view livestock); little fear (several of them end up killing themselves in childhood); and little in the way of other emotions (although most of them experience anger & disgust to a significant extent).”
That’s a description not an explanation; what characteristics do psychopaths have that cannot be found in non-psychopaths?
Deformed brains Squeeth amongst other things, there are several competing theories about the clinical meaning of these deformities, the existence of which are only becoming more widely accepted since the publication of University of Wisconsin study in 2017, which stated it had identified the abnormalities in structure and consequent rerouting of neural impulse, the subregions most affected being fear and empathy/sentimentality
excerpt from modern psychology primer
“What causes psychopathy?
Brain anatomy, genetics, and the person’s environment may all contribute to the development of psychopathic traits. However, it’s important to note that not all psychopathic traits and tendencies mean the person will grow into a psychopath.
What are psychopathic tendencies?
Psychopathic tendencies could be considered warning signs of psychopathy, but it’s important to note that not everyone who shows psychopathic tendencies becomes a psychopath. Some, with the intervention of various therapies and strong, nurturing relationships, can assimilate to a relatively normal way of life.”
These tendencies are both neurological and behavioural – look at the Hare checklist for a few mins – a bright virtual entity such as yourself won’t need to read much: you’ll recognise it all from life experience – from observing others and oneself, lol.
Good luck, Craig. Probably the most clarifying moment in divining Labour’s attitude to the genocide (and that of the English political-media class in general) was the vetoing of the SNP ceasefire motion in February because it stated that Israel was inflicting “collective punishment” on the people of Gaza. Labour’s objection to that statement was represented to the public by the pundits, political correspondents and columnists as entirely correct and responsible while the SNP motion was deemed dangerous, inaccurate and extreme.
That remains the Official position in England today — that there has been no collective punishment in Gaza. Not even after it being widely (and approvingly) reported that the UK *itself* had ceased funding for UNRWA. The Official advice from the grown ups is to disbelieve our eyes and ears, misunderstand what withdrawing food aid during a famine actually means, and just nod agreement and repeat after the politicians and their media, “There is no collective punishment in Gaza. Never has been any, never will be any.”
One thing I’d worry about were I a candidate in a GE, is postal vote fraud. We’ve brought in photo ID requirements but done nothing to harden electoral systems against the real risk of postal vote manipulation. You’d be surprised how many countries simply don’t allow postal votes, I was. It’s because of the loss of chain of custody issue. It’s been raised before here, as an issue; how after the 2019 election postal votes, as a percentage of total votes cast leapt from the teens to a staggering 37% of all votes cast (pls correct if that figure is wrong). The fact a private company with a former Tory cabinet minister and ardent Brexiter, Peter Lily on the board won the postal vote-handling contract, an outfit that disbanded, all records deleted, straight after the election, it looks incredibly suspect.
I’d like to see auditable e-voting implemented, though we’d really need the full ISP rollout of IPv6 for all before that. That has the potential to revolutionise secure end-to-end communications. We should also issue every citizen with their own certificate(s) too – to enable safe authenticated online voting. You could have individual voting accounts, in which you could opt to keep a record of your votes for your own future reference or, for auditing by an independent election integrity body, with your consent. This would eliminate the risk of fraud, as any malicious actor wouldn’t know which random accounts would opt-in to any audit process.
There’s been a really slow rollout of IPv6 in the UK though, and I wonder if UK authorities (obsessed as they are with surveillance and encryption) dislike IPv6 because of the huge number of subnet addresses that are possible; 2^64 or 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 – impossible to scan all IPv6 subnets! To do so sequentially, on a gigabit connection, with no other traffic, would take 491,351 years!!!
Why bother rigging an election that is inherently bent?
Sad to see you go Craig, you would’ve been brilliant as a MSP, I hope you get elected, and I’m sure you’ll do your best not just for your constituents but for those poor Palestinians that Starmer has seen fit to suffer greatly at the hands of the Zionists.
I foresee smaller socialist parties making a breakthrough along with more independent candidates winning a seat in the HoC.
Even if this is 4.8% out, the worst prediction it has ever produced, a hung parliament is not going to be the result… https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html
Is it possible for Craig Murray’s Labour opponent in Blackburn or Starmer himself to visit Blackburn dressed in this uniform…
‘I’ve got my uniform’: Rep. Mast wears IDF garb on the hill (Politico, 10/13/2023)
If not, some posters with Starmer’s mugshot superimposed on such a poster would be entirely appropriate. He is after all a Zionist without qualification.