How could they tell?

Run out of money? Just print some more! “Quantitive easing” is scarcely new, even if now done electronically rather than with ink and paper. In current economic circumstances the obvious economic effect – inflation – is likely to be muted. I have never seen deflation before and few alive in the UK have. Stagflation, yes. Enough quantitive easing and we can eventually get back to stagflation. Meantime, thanks to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown for bringing us a new experience.

But while the inflationary effect is likely to be overwhelmed by deflation, the redistributive effect of quantitive easing will be alive and kicking. By inventing more money, there is an effect – not as simple as it sounds but very real – of reducing the value of existing money, to the detriment of those who have some, and redistributing value to those who get the new money.

This is the Zimbabwe solution, where Mugabe’s regime prints ever more zeros denominated notes, which of course go massively disproportionately to the military and regime members. They have the additional advantages of being able to change them at a hugely advantageous “official” excahnge rate open only to them.

And in Brown’s Zimbabwe solution, who are the equivalent of the regime members, those who benefit from the game at the expense of you and me? Why, exactly the same beneficiaries who have already received over £15,000 from every man, woman and child in the country in various rescue measures and guarantees – the banks!

Yes folks, the 75 billion, and perhaps 150 biilion, of newly invented money is to go to the banks, in return for some pretty worthless bonds, in the hope that somehow the banks will lend it out responsibly to businesses and “Kickstart” the economy. As opposed to pay it out in massive bonuses to themselves, use it to hide their incredible bundles of “toxic debt” and invest it in dubous financial instruments, which is how they have wasted all the huge amounts of taxpayer cash they have been fed so far.

Brown’s blind faith in the baking system which he deregulated and allowed to go rotten, is the modern “trickledown economics”. The government hopes if they pump enough money into the banks, it will trickle out again and do something useful. The main useful thing they hope it will do is reinflate the bubble of our ludicrously inflated property market. In fact that would not be useful at all. If you have been the victim of a pyramid scam, it is not a good idea to try to repair your finances by joining another one.

Brown’s fawning Washington trip attempted to show him leading the World in economic recovery. In fact there are big differences between Brown’s plans – under which 95% of “economic rescue” financing is pumped straight to fatcat bankers – and Obama’s $719 billion rescue package which involves a great deal of direct job creation by old fashioned Keynsian public works. The “pork barrel” elements of tacking on pet projects to get Obama’s bill through Congress was not especially unhelpful in this instance.

It would be far, far better to let the UK banks go bust. Firstly the bastards deserved it. A system where the fatcats take the profits and you and I fund their losses is completely unacceptable. It is worth noting that even in the Royal Bank of Scotland the UK retail banking operation was highly profitable as a stand alone operation, so these elements could be rescued.

It would have cost the government less to give everyone their bank deposits back than it has cost to try to save the rotten corrupt structures.

Instead, a family of four now has a national debt share of £140,000, and increasing by £5,000 a month. Yet the only jobs saved have been those of City – not retail, they were profitable anyway – City bankers, plus their lap dancers and cocaine suppliers. Meanwhile ordinary people are starting to lose their jobs by the drove.

In Dundee, the twelve employees of Prisme Packaging were told this week they were immediately redundant, and there was no cash to pay statutory redundancy payments. Gordon Brown and the Bank of England strangely didn’t offer to print any money for them.

David Mills has been given a jail sentence in Italy for corruption, though sadly he will probably escape jail as the rich and well connected normally do.

Tessa Jowell actively participated in the laundering of the corrupt payments from Silvio Berlusconi, given to her husband David Mills in return for false testimony in court to cover up some of Berlusconi’s endless crooked dealings. Tessa Jowell participated as a full partner in the three time remortgaging of her home, paying off the mortgage with cash and then remortgaging. She has stated that there was “Nothing unusual” in this.

Most people would think it was very unusual to be able to pay off a large mortgage with cash at all. To do it twice and remortgage again each time would strike most of us as very weird indeed.

Which illustrates the gap between the hierarchy of “New Labour” and the “Hard working families” who are Gordon Brown’s favourite soundbite. This is illustrated by Mills’ description of £500,000 as “not very much”.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/feb/17/david-mills-berlusconi-trial-letter

This is of a piece with Jacqui Smith’s ripping off the taxpayer of £150,000 by pretending her sister’s home is her main residence, then wondering what the fuss is about. That would be ten year’s salary for the British soldier killed today in Afghanistan.

Nobody who reads Mills’ letter to his accountant (above link) can doubt that he is a crook. This particular Berlusconi deal was just one part of his bent practice, which included the financial arrangements for organised crime in Italy to sell on infected and condemned human blood from the USA into transfusion services in Europe. Tessa Jowell lived off these criminal earnings for decades and actively participated in laundering the cash.

Either Jowell did not notice she was living with a major criminal – in which case she is far too stupid to be a minister – or she was complicit – in which case she is far too corrupt to be a minister.

No ifs or buts are possible.

Only when Mills was exposed to the media did Jowell abandon her husband – sacrificing her marriage for her political career. If she had remained loyal to him it would have at least been some slight saving grace. In fact the woman is a total disgrace.

There is no doubt that New Labour gives not a fig for individual liberty, so the banning by the money-grabbing Jacqui Smith of Geert Wilders is run-of-the-mill – but it is still both wrong and dangerous, and has whipped up precisely the kind of frenzy about his Melanie Phillips like gibberings which Smith claimed to be trying to avoid.

It was equally wrong to ban Yusuf al-Qaradawi. I just heard the BBC World Service conduct some unusually good interviews with political figures, where those who opposed the banning of Wilders (eg Baroness Cox) supported the banning of al-Qaradwi, while those who opposed the banning of al-Qaradwi (eg Ken Livingstone) supported the banning of Wilders. Both sides argue, equally unconvincingly, that the man they dislike may incite to violence.

The BBC appeared unable to find any supporter of the principle of freedon of expression.

There was no reason to suppose that either Wilders or al-Qaradwi planned any unlawful activity in the UK, and had they done so they might properly have been arrested. But the gut instincts of New Labour are viciously authoritarian. Those of all views who value liberty should unite to resist them. The problem is, the number of people who really do believe in liberty for those with whom they disagree, appears to have grown exceedingly small.

The nauseating smugness of the Davos gathering is sickening enough at the best of times. In these very bad times, it is unbearable. The idea that we just need to recover confidence and get credit moving again, was precisely what the promoters of the South Seas and Darien schemes said when those schemes collapsed. The Church of England were quite right to characterise New Labour’s proposed remedies as “An addict returning to his drug”.

Brown’s extraordinary reliance on paid advisers from the merchant banks themselves to devise the way forward is laughable – not to mention the hideously unpleasant Baroness Vedera, one of the endless stream of democratically unaccountable Brown cronies parachuted into the Lords as ministers. And if one more penny of public money gets put into the banks without all bank bosses and staff being put on civil service pay rates, I am organising a tax strike.

Am in the middle of moving house, so no more from me until the end of the week.

The disgusting Lord Taylor of Blackburn, who together with Justice Secretary Jack Straw forms the chief parliamentary support for the stinkingly corrupt BAE arms company, has been caught out demanding £120,000 to peddle his New Labour influence in the House of Lords.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/4339198/Labour-Lords-how-peer-allegedly-offered-to-bend-the-rules-for-120000-fee.html

As ever, this blog was there first – eighteen months ago. We have in fact been all over Lord Scumbag like a rash. These are essential reading as background to the current scandal:

http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2007/08/theres_good_mon.html#comments

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/08/more_lord_scumb.html

I think this passage I wrote in 2007 has been roundly vindicated:

Straw’s links with BAE are partly conducted through Lord Taylor of Blackburn, the former leader of the Blackburn with Darwen Council that includes Straw’s Blackburn constituency. Lord Taylor, an archetypal New Labour apparatchik from Straw’s constituency machine, has lived off the taxpayer in Labour Party appointed posts all his life. He is now chiefly known as the second highest claimer of expenses in the House of Lords. In 2005 Lord Taylor claimed over ‘57,000 of tax-free expenses, over three times the average claim of under ‘19,000. he spoke 15 times in the year.

But he doesn’t really need that public money anymore, as the grasping creep Taylor is the primary conduit between the defence industry and New Labour. He has been a highly paid “Consultant” to BAE for over a decade. He also has used some of that money to make major contributions to Jack Straw’s election expenses in his Blackburn constituency, declared by Straw in the Register of Member’s interests. Lord Taylor also regularly makes large contributions to fund Blackburn New Labour. When I stood against Straw in Blackburn at the last election, Taylor was present with Straw at a black tie event hosted by BAE in the constituency said to be “unrelated to the election”.

Interestingly, this year in the House of Lords’ Register of Members’ interests, BAE has disappeared from Taylor’s list of eleven paid consultancies and two paid directorships. It might be interesting to dig for links between these companies and BAE. Some are certainly arms firms – including the highly sinister Electronic Data Systems.

EDS is another of the arms companies that has made many billions from the Iraq war. Among their many current defence contracts is a $12 billion project on electronic systems for the US armed forces. Presumably a well-plugged in New Labour apparatchik like Lord Taylor was of no hindrance to EDS in March 2005 when they landed a ‘2.5 billion contract from the UK MOD for a similar project. Indeed, if Lord Taylor cannot help swing that kind of contract, why are EDS paying him?

I do not have power of words sufficiently to condemn the institutional sleaze of a system where a scumbag like Lord Taylor can be put, unelected, by Labour into a seat for life in the national legislature. There, while a legislator, he can act as a well paid and highly connected lobbyist for the arms industry. As someone who has been deeply patriotic, I must now say that I find myself unable to have any pride in my own country any longer.

I do hope the old war profiteer finally gets put away behind bars. But with his long term partner Jack Straw as so-called Minister of Justice…

Allowing influence to party hacks like Taylor is of course exactly why New Labour is 100% against democratic reform of the House of Lords. Now your essay question: examine the facts about Lord Taylor in the light of the analysis of the control of policy by specific interests by J A Hobson in the blog entry below.

One of the purposes of this blog is to reconnect my readers with our heritage of British radical thought. These ideas were very much part of the intellectual mainstream, but in my lifetime that mainstream has been drastically narrowed by the control of media and of education by the very interests and methods that will be described in this entry.

Since I posted this extract two years ago the readership of this blog has expanded greatly, and those who were with me two years ago will benefit from a refresh. This is an extract from Imperialism: A Study (written in 1901) by the great and sadly neglected Liberal economist J A Hobson. Since my teens he has been one of the most profound influences on my own thinking.

Those who have read The Catholic Orangemen will understand that a consistent Hobsonian analysis underpinned my actions in Africa regarding both mercenary and British military and financial involvement there.

More fundamentally, Hobson’s profound and clear analysis is simply applied to Cheney and Halliburton, BAE and most of the other evils against which we are still struggling today.

Seeing that the Imperialism of the last three decades is clearly condemned as a business policy, in that at enormous expense it has procured a small, bad, unsafe increase of markets, and has jeopardised the entire wealth of the nation in rousing the strong resentment of other nations, we may ask, “How is the British nation induced to embark upon such unsound business?” The only possible answer is that the business interests of the nation as a whole are subordinated to those of certain sectional interests that usurp control of the national resources and use them for their private gain. This is no strange or monstrous charge to bring; it is the commonest disease of all forms of government. The famous words of Sir Thomas More are as true now as when he wrote them: “Everywhere do I perceive a certain conspiracy of rich men seeking their own advantage under the name and pretext of the commonwealth.”

I.IV.1

Although the new Imperialism has been bad business for the nation, it has been good business for certain classes and certain trades within the nation. The vast expenditure on armaments, the costly wars, the grave risks and embarrassments of foreign policy, the stoppage of political and social reforms within Great Britain, though fraught with great injury to the nation, have served well the present business interests of certain industries and professions.

I.IV.2

It is idle to meddle with politics unless we clearly recognise this central fact and understand what these sectional interests are which are the enemies of national safety and the commonwealth. We must put aside the merely sentimental diagnosis which explains wars or other national blunders by outbursts of patriotic animosity or errors of statecraft. Doubtless at every outbreak of war not only the man in the street but the man at the helm is often duped by the cunning with which aggressive motives and greedy purposes dress themselves in defensive clothing. There is, it may be safely asserted, no war within memory, however nakedly aggressive it may seem to the dispassionate historian, which has not been presented to the people who were called upon to fight as a necessary defensive policy, in which the honour, perhaps the very existence, of the State was involved.

I.IV.3

The disastrous folly of these wars, the material and moral damage inflicted even on the victor, appear so plain to the disinterested spectator that he is apt to despair of any State attaining years of discretion, and inclines to regard these natural cataclysms as implying some ultimate irrationalism in politics. But careful analysis of the existing relations between business and politics shows that the aggressive Imperialism which we seek to understand is not in the main the product of blind passions of races or of the mixed folly and ambition of politicians. It is far more rational than at first sight appears. Irrational from the standpoint of the whole nation, it is rational enough from the standpoint of certain classes in the nation. A completely socialist State which kept good books and presented regular balance-sheets of expenditure and assets would soon discard Imperialism; an intelligent laissez-faire democracy which gave duly proportionate weight in its policy to all economic interests alike would do the same. But a State in which certain well-organised business interests are able to outweigh the weak, diffused interest of the community is bound to pursue a policy which accords with the pressure of the former interests.

I.IV.4

In order to explain Imperialism on this hypothesis we have to answer two questions. Do we find in Great Britain to-day any well-organised group of special commercial and social interests which stand to gain by aggressive Imperialism and the militarism it involves? If such a combination of interests exists, has it the power to work its will in the arena of politics?

I.IV.5

What is the direct economic outcome of Imperialism? A great expenditure of public money upon ships, guns, military and naval equipment and stores, growing and productive of enormous profits when a war, or an alarm of war, occurs; new public loans and important fluctuations in the home and foreign Bourses; more posts for soldiers and sailors and in the diplomatic and consular services; improvement of foreign investments by the substitution of the British flag for a foreign flag; acquisition of markets for certain classes of exports, and some protection and assistance for trades representing British houses in these manufactures; employment for engineers, missionaries, speculative miners, ranchers and other emigrants.

I.IV.6

Certain definite business and professional interests feeding upon imperialistic expenditure, or upon the results of that expenditure, are thus set up in opposition to the common good, and, instinctively feeling their way to one another, are found united in strong sympathy to support every new imperialist exploit.

How do they do it?

In view of the part which the non-economic factors of patriotism, adventure, military enterprise, political ambition, and philanthropy play in imperial expansion, it may appear that to impute to financiers so much power is to take a too narrowly economic view of history. And it is true that the motor-power of Imperialism is not chiefly financial: finance is rather the governor of the imperial engine, directing the energy and determining its work: it does not constitute the fuel of the engine, nor does it directly generate the power. Finance manipulates the patriotic forces which politicians, soldiers, philanthropists, and traders generate; the enthusiasm for expansion which issues from these sources, though strong and genuine, is irregular and blind; the financial interest has those qualities of concentration and clear-sighted calculation which are needed to set Imperialism to work. An ambitious statesman, a frontier soldier, an overzealous missionary, a pushing trader, may suggest or even initiate a step of imperial expansion, may assist in educating patriotic public opinion to the urgent need of some fresh advance, but the final determination rests with the financial power. The direct influence exercised by great financial houses in “high politics” is supported by the control which they exercise over the body of public opinion through the Press, which, in every “civilised” country, is becoming more and more their obedient instrument. While the specifically financial newspaper imposes “facts” and “opinions” on the business classes, the general body of the Press comes more and more under the conscious or unconscious domination of financiers. The case of the South African Press, whose agents and correspondents fanned the martial flames in this country, was one of open ownership on the part of South African financiers, and this policy of owning newspapers for the sake of manufacturing public opinion is common in the great European cities. In Berlin, Vienna, and Paris many of the influential newspapers are held by financial houses, which use them, not primarily to make direct profits out of them, but in order to put into the public mind beliefs and sentiments which will influence public policy and thus affect the money market. In Great Britain this policy has not gone so far, but the alliance with finance grows closer every year, either by financiers purchasing a controlling share of newspapers, or by newspaper proprietors being tempted into finance. Apart from the financial Press, and financial ownership of the general Press, the City notoriously exercises a subtle and abiding influence upon leading London newspapers, and through them upon the body of the provincial Press, while the entire dependence of the Press for its business profits upon its advertising columns involves a peculiar reluctance to oppose the organised financial classes with whom rests the control of so much advertising business. Add to this the natural sympathy with a sensational policy which a cheap Press always manifests, and it becomes evident that the Press is strongly biassed towards Imperialism, and lends itself with great facility to the suggestion of financial or political Imperialists who desire to work up patriotism for some new piece of expansion.

I.IV.40

Such is the array of distinctively economic forces making for Imperialism, a large loose group of trades and professions seeking profitable business and lucrative employment from the expansion of military and civil services, from the expenditure on military operations, the opening up of new tracts of territory and trade with the same, and the provision of new capital which these operations require, all these finding their central guiding and directing force in the power of the general financier.

I.IV.41

The play of these forces does not openly appear. They are essentially parasites upon patriotism, and they adapt themselves to its protecting colours. In the mouths of their representatives are noble phrase, expressive of their desire to extend the area of civilisation, to establish good government, promote Christianity, extirpate slavery, and elevate the lower races. Some of the business men who hold such language may entertain a genuine, though usually a vague, desire to accomplish these ends, but they are primarily engaged in business, and they are not unaware of the utility of the more unselfish forces in furthering their ends. Their true attitude of mind is expressed by Mr. Rhodes in his famous description of “Her Majesty’s Flag” as “the greatest commercial asset in the world.”*20

The entire book is available online.

http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Hobson/hbsnImp.html

It is deeply saddening to me how much of the great heritage of Liberal thought is now neglected. I do hope you will take a look and see just how little we have learnt in the ensuing 100 years.

I am hopeful the public outcry caused by the BBC’s refusal to broadcast the joint appeal for Gaza, will open more eyes to the immense bias in the BBC’s News coverage.

As it has slipped off the front page, I think it is worth reproducing this from my blog for 6 January:

What is Really Happening

I watched BBC World News for a timed hour yesterday. In that time I saw:

Pro-Israeli (including US government) speakers – 17

Pro-Palestinian speakers – 2

Mentions of Hamas Rockets as reason for war – 37

Mentions of illegal Israeli settlements – 0

Mentions of Palestinians killed by Israel during “ceasefire” – 2

Mentions of Sderot – 12

Mentions Sderot used to be Palestinian – 0

If you don’t believe me, try it yourself.

The BBC took being banned from Gaza by the Israelis as the excuse to focus a wildly disproportionate attention on the Hamas threat to Israel. Their choice of Sderot as their base of operations was in itself a factor of bias – and their failure to say, even once, that Sderot was once Palestinian was inexcusable.

Now journalists can get into Gaza there has been nothing by the BBC that comes close to matching the searing explorations by Channel 4, ITN and yes, Sky News, on the atrocities that happened there.

I am particularly outraged by the pusillanimity of my Dundee University and Tashkent colleague Alan Johnston, on whose behalf in his kidnapping I had been attempting to exert what little influence I have to its utmost limit (to no avail, I fear). He appears to have exhausted all his compassion on himself.

But what is truly extraordinary is the way that New Labour careerists like Alexander and Bradshaw, who have come out to ask for the appeal to be broadcast, now that Bush has gone are so instantly re-orienting themselves slavishly to follow a slightly different direction.

Do not be fooled by New Labour; they have no core beliefs but in their own careers. Stand by for them to explain they were against extraordinary rendition all along. Do not believe an of our Ministers on anything. And should you get close to any of them, I believe personal violence may be justified in this instance.

Note added 26.01.09

If you have not complained to the BBC yet, you can do so at:

PHONE: 03700 100 222

TEXT: 03700 100 212

ONLINE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/complaints_stage1.shtml

You can donate to the appeal that the BBC is denying a

broadcast here: https://www.donate.bt.com/bt_form_gaza.html

Geoff Hoon has just informed the Commons that a third runway at Heathrow is essential to Britain’s economic prospects.

I have never understood why it is essential to our economy that a gentleman flying indirect from, say, Dubai to Phoenix, should change his plane in Heathrow rather than Paris. It is that kind of transit traffic which accounts for over 90% of the additional capacity BAA is seeking.

If more people do that, we will get some more landing fees; the passenger might buy a cup of coffee in the airport. But these gains are outweighed by the costs in air and noise pollution. Our slender chances of meeting climate change targets will be greatly dented.

Hoon suggested that the extra aviation emissions could be offset by increased use of electric cars. He could have rephrased that by saying that any gains from increased use of electric cars would be lost by increased aircraft emissions.

We are used to New Labour being completely in the pocket of private business interests. But the doublespeak about how a third runway is environmentally friendly makes me puke.

We were taught at school to detest the early 19th century reformer Owen Chadwick and his “Doctrine of lesser eligibility”. What this meant was that it should be less eligible – desirable – to be on benefit than off it. Chadwick’s plans led to the cruelties of the workhouse system – though cruelty was not Chadwick’s intention.

Nadira and I have to move from our small Shepherds Bush flat, with a baby on the way and my children often visiting. I don’t want to buy in a still falling market, so I was looking to rent again. More space means moving further out, so we were looking at a nice house at Ealing Common.

The house had three bedrooms and was for rent at £2,300 per month. The rental market is also falling – not plummeting like the purchase market, but floating gently downwards. So we offered £2,100 and agreement seemed very close.

Then Ealing Council stepped in and offered the owner £2,700 per month to take it for social housing.

Obviously I admit to some personal frustration, but it is plain in this case (and I don’t know how many houses Ealing Council are taking) that the government intervention is radically distorting the market, to the detriment of private renters.

Chadwick’s doctrine of lesser eligibility was abused to harrass the poor. But we have an opposite doctrine at work here. If you are on state benefits you can get a level of housing that self-reliant working people are priced out of. That seems wrong too.

I await the howls of left wing rage!

The Establishment is closing ranks around their Prince. He has apologised for his remarks, so that is OK, they say.

I am troubled by the gap between the official explanation and the actual video footage. On the “Paki” remark, an official statement from St James Palace says that it was a nickname for a friend. I therefore expected the video to show Harry joshing with his friend and calling him Paki.

But that is not what the video shows at all. From across a waiting area littered with soldiers, Harry focusses his camera on a distant Asian and says “And there is our little Paki friend”.

It is very plain that the Asian soldier cannot hear what Harry is saying. And while Harry’s voice is good-humoured in that he is enjoying his own jibe, do I imagine a slight sneer to the tone? It is certainly by no means evident that Harry would call the man that to his face, or that it is a nickname. “Our little Paki friend” is an unbelievably long nickname anyway.

On his “raghead” remark, I am familar with the use of raghead as a chiefly American term of racist abuse for an Arab or Muslim. Harry served in Afghanistan. If our officers are going around using the term “raghead”, that is no joke. There is no doubt that in the Army it is a disciplinary offence.

Sky News this morning noted that it would be an uncomfortable breakfast for Prince Harry with his father at Highgrove.

I thought how remarkably sporting Prince Charles must be, to invite Prince Harry’s father to Highgrove!

With thanks to David Rose.

I sometimes complain that we have forgotten so much of our fantastic hreitage of thinkers and writers in the British radical tradition. Please read this closely. It is the best comment I have seen yet on the current extraordinarily bad condition of our World.

It was written by William Blake in 1804.

What is the price of Experience; do men buy it for a song

Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No it is bought with the price

Of all that a man hath; his house his wife his children

Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy

And in the witherd field where the farmer plows for bread in vain

It is an easy thing to triumph in the summer’s sun

And in the vintage & to sing on the waggon loaded with corn

It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted

To speak the laws of prudence to the houseless wanderer

To listen to the hungry ravens cry in wintry season

When the red blood is filld with wine & with the marrow of lambs

It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements

To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughter house moan

To see a god on every wind & a blessing on every blast

To hear sounds of love in the thunder storm that destroys our enemies house

To rejoice in the blight that covers his field, & the sickness that cuts off his children

While our olive & vine sing & laugh round our door & our children bring fruits & flowers

Then the groan & the dolor are quite forgotten & the slave grinding at the mill

And the captive in chains & the poor in the prison, & the soldier in the field

When the shatterd bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead

It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity

Thus could I sing & thus rejoice, but it is not so with me!

Wlliam Blake: The Four Zoas – Vala (Night the Second)

It was over two years ago that I came home from Morrisons in Shepherds Bush, carrier bags dangling from both hands, their handles cutting into my palms and fingers. Emily, then twelve years old, opened the door for me as I rang the bell with my chin, and quickly taking the bags from one hand, she replaced them with the telephone.

“Dad, there’s some bloke on the line”, she said, “I think his name’s Harold Pinter.”

I did a quadruple take, paused to control myself, and spoke into the phone dubiously.

“Hello? Craig Murray here”.

The reply came in that stage whisper voice and laboured breathing that characterised the great man’s tortured years.

“Hello. This is Harold Pinter. I have just read your book. Bloody marvellous effort. Might I invite you to lunch?”

I accepted with great alacrity, and a few days later walked along to Holland Park, to his favourite Italian restaurant. He was chauffeured to the door and helped out of the vehicle, but insisted on walking to the table himself, doing so with enormous difficulty and in some obvious pain. He ordered a bottle of white wine and poured it himself, the extreme shake of his hand spilling a good deal of the contents of the bottle over his trousers, the table and me. He actually got quite sharp with me when I offered to take the bottle. He positively snapped:

“No, I can do it.”

When Harold Pinter snapped at you, it left you in no doubt what had just happened. I wasn’t sure how to recover and, with instantaneous but very conscious calculation, decided to risk a joke about his condition. I launched in:

“Hmmm, reminds me of the old joke:

‘Doctor, doctor, my hand keeps shaking’

‘Do you drink much?’

‘No, I spill most of it.’ ”

He laughed genuinely at this old chestnut, and handed me the bottle. We drank a good deal over lunch; I believe three more bottles followed.

He told me that he found his plays funnier than audiences did. He did not miss writing plays because he had become “sanctified”, and people felt they were not allowed to laugh at the absurd. On the other hand he felt his poetry was better crafted than his plays, yet did not get the same degree of analysis.

He spoke at great length about Murder in Samarkand, which he was kind enough to call one of the most important books written in his lifetime. He was full of absolute fury for Bush and Blair. He called them “Liars and thieves”, and he was rather despairing about the lack of really serious challenge to the attack on civil liberties in the UK and US. He said his great desire was to live to see Bush and Blair on trial in the Hague as war criminals. He realised he might not make it, and urged me to make sure I stayed alive long enough to do it.

He drew great heart from the young people in the anti-war movement, and suggested that, terrible though the government was, we should not fall prey to hopelessness.

I remember two things he said especially: “Hopelessness is the disease of old men”, and : “Bush and Blair are fucking cunts. You know, the English language has fantastic resource. Fucking cunts. Bush and Blair, fucking cunts. It is absolutely right for them.”

He said this quite deliberately in a voice the whole restaurant would hear.

All the other lunchers had long gone by the time we left the restaurant. At the end, he wrote on a menu for me the quote that appears on the cover of Murder in Samarkand. He insisted I did not wait around while they “load me in like a sack of coal”.

A couple of days later a signed original from the ceremony of his Nobel acceptance speech arrived, together with some manuscript poems. A few weeks after he emailed me to offer me financial assistance as he had heard (correctly though I do not know how) that I couldn’t pay the rent – I declined but was most touched. He took an interest by email in Nadira’s progress through drama school and with her one woman show. I only ever saw him once again, and that in a large company.

Obviously of those who could really say they knew him, I knew him very little.

But I am deeply saddened by this passing, and I offer these recollections to add to the picture of a wonderful man, great writer, and true friend of liberty and peace.

My anger at the conduct of the Jean Charles De Menezes inquest has already been strongly expressed.

I only wish now to add that it is essential that the perjured police be jailed. The jury unequivocally and explicitly found that the police witnesses had lied and that the unanimous evidence of seventeen non-police witnesses had told the truth. There is no possible conclusion other than that the police perjured themselves, and conspired together to concoct a joint lie.

It is now therefore essential to restore some faith in the legal system that the liars are jailed, and jailed for a long time, not just for perjury, but also for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

I appeared on Sky News yesterday to talk about the Damian Green case (by webcam from Accra), and was simply stunned when another guest on the programme, some idiot from labourhome.com, cited the arrest of an MP in the chamber of the House of Commons in 1815 as justification for police treatment of Damian Green. That excuse is being spread by New Labour across the media and blogosphere.

When this blog was very new, on 8 August 2005, I wrote that: “These are the most dangerous times for liberty in the UK since the government of Lord Liverpool”.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2005/08/those_of_us_who.html

I never for a moment thought that I would see New Labour use one of the most infamous acts of Lord Liverpool’s ultra-reactionary government to justify their behaviour.

The MP arrested was Lord Thomas Cochrane. He was arguably the greatest fighting sailor the World has ever produced – very serious military historians will argue that he was even more daring and innovative than Nelson. This is from the official MOD website:

http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/server/show/nav.3881

Cochrane was also a Radical. He was elected to Parliament to represent Westminster – at a time the only parliamentary seat with a broadly democratic franchise. He believed in one man one vote, and the abolition of taxes on food and newspapers, and the destruction of scores of privileges. He was also dangerously (to the government) popular and a war hero.

So Lords Liverpool, Eldon and Sidmouth had him arrested, on patently trumped-up embezzlement charges. There followed a series of trials, acquittals, demonstrations and a popular uprising freeing him from prison, after which he was dragged and arrested from the opposition front bench while about to denounce instances of very real government corruption.

Liverpool of course abolished habeas corpus, public meetings, and trades unions and his governrnent perpetrated the Peterloo Massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators. So I suppose it is not a shock to see this near-fascist government quoting Liverpool as a good precedent. Except that this is supposed to be a Labour government, and the entire Labour/Liberal tendency in this country was brought up for six generations to view Liverpool as all that was evil in conservatism. This was the period of Peterloo and the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Has anybody in this government even read E P Thompson’s “The Making of the English Working Class”?

Cochrane escaped abroad and continued to fight for freedom in the most literal way. He helped lead the anti-colonial struggles in Chile, Brazil and Greece. He formed makeshift navies for them, and with tiny resources and near superhuman energy and ability waged long and ultimately succesful naval campaigns against the Spanish, Portuguese and Turkish navies.

The arrest of Thomas Cochrane in the House of Commons was the lowest point of despotism in the UK since the death of Charles I. Those New Labour hacks who cite it in justification are ill-educated fools beneath contempt.

One of the features of a transition to a police state is that those who should defend our liberties transfer their allegiance to the executive of the state. Viz the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Serjeant at Arms. Now we have a senior coroner. Sir Michael Wright, coroner in the Jean Charles de Menezes inquiry, who has told the jury they are not permitted to return a verdict of unlawful killing.

That is of course the obvious verdict from the evidence. Were it not so, the disgraceful Wright would not have needed to serve the police by so instructing.

Wright went on to give a completely one-sided summation of the evidence, restating police evidence and ignoring the evidence of many close eye-witnesses who contradicted it. In perhaps the most extraordinary passage in a summation in recent English legal history, he went on to justify the occasions where the police killers were caught obviously lying:

However, Wright added, even if the jury found the officers had lied, they would not be able to blame them for the death. “Many people tell lies for a variety of reasons … [including] to mitigate the impact of what might be a … tragic mistake,” he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/dec/02/menezes-police-inquest

Read that again.

However, Wright added, even if the jury found the officers had lied, they would not be able to blame them for the death. “Many people tell lies for a variety of reasons … [including] to mitigate the impact of what might be a … tragic mistake,” he said.

Incredible, isn’t it? So it is fine to shoot a completely innocent man repeatedly in the head, and lie about it in Court, because you are only trying to “mitigate the impact”.

What?

Read it again.

However, Wright added, even if the jury found the officers had lied, they would not be able to blame them for the death. “Many people tell lies for a variety of reasons … [including] to mitigate the impact of what might be a … tragic mistake,” he said.

I still can’t believe the disgraceful old bastard said it.

I still do believe that we will come to recover from the terrible poison of the New Labour years, and return to being a liberal society. We will look back at all this as Americans now look back at McCarthyism, with horror and shame. And when historians write the history of these times, there will be a special footnote devoted to the infamous, the disgraceful, the appalling Sir Michael Wright.

There is a place reserved for Sir Michael in the deepest, blackest, hottest corner of Hell. He has already had much more time on this Earth than was allowed to poor Jean Charles De Menezes, who Sir Michael wishes us to believe was quite lawfully blown away by the police.

Let Sir Michael take his own good time to reach Hell. I certainly do not wish anyone to shoot him in the head while he is sitting peacefully on the Tube. But if they did, I certainly hope they deploy the defence “He was asking for it: he stood up”. And I certainly hope the judge agrees, and the words filter down to tease Sir Michael in his eternal torment.

John Stuart Mill was to my mind the greatest political philosopher this country has ever produced. If our New Labour governors had in their youth read Mill rather than pretending to read Marx and Trotsky, we would not be under such an assault on our civil liberties. Mill today is not studied in any of our state schools nor is he a serious part of the curriculum in almost any of our University philosophy departments. That is a part of the “dumbing down” of our education system, but it is not my subject today.

I was reminded this morning of one of Mill’s more mischievous quotes:

“Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative”.

With a small c, of course, that description embraces most of New Labour. But Mill also meant it with a large C, and he dubbed the Conservatives “The stupid party”.

What reminded me of this was David Davis being interviewed this morning. I have come to have a real respect for Mr Davis and believe his concern for liberty to be genuine. He made a number of good points on the Damian Green affair.

But just before Davis had been introduced, Sky News had announced that the Chief Constable of the British Transport Police, Mr Ian Johnston CBE had been appointed by the Metropolitan Police to carry out an “independent” inquiry into the handling of the Damien Green case, and that Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary, had put out a simultaneous statement welcoming the move.

The Sky commentators had said that this would “assuage Tory concerns”.

I thought, “No, the Tories are not that stupid.”

Then along came David Davis and fell straight into the huge, naked elephant trap, welcoming Mr Johnston’s appointment and looking forward to the results of his inquiry.

For God’s sake, how many times? Legg, Hutton, Butler?

That would be an independent inquiry into the Metropolitan Police by Mr Ian Johnston, immediate past Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, would it?

Stupid doesn’t cover it. The problem with the Tories is that they still trust what we might broadly call “the Establishment”. They cannot get into their thick-boned skulls how far New Labour has politicised it and turned it into an instrument against the people.

Even now, they can’t.

Anyway, here is a preview of Mr Johnston’s report. You saw it here first:

The Metropolitan Police were investigating an allegation of a serious crime

They acted in a proper manner

They needed to search premises for evidence. Proeper permission was sought from the parliamentary authorities

Mr Green was suspected and rightfully arrested and detained

No Ministers were consulted on Mr Green’s arrest; there was no political interference

Some junior police officers were guilty of minor faults. Mr Green was held an hour or two longer than necessary. One or two more police officers than necessary were deployed on searches.

Mr Johnston’s terms of reference will exclude, and you will not see in his report, a log of all contacts between the Police and Ministers and between officials and Ministers discussing the case of Mr Green or his alleged source.

For the next one week, and when the matter is debated in the Commons, the government will refuse to comment pending the result of the “independent” investigation.

For God’s sake, Tories, wake up and smell the coffee!!!!!!!!

Over to you, Iain Dale. Are you that stupid?

Damian Green was arrested and bailed by the Police for “Misconduct in public office”.

The most egregious example of “Misconduct in public office” in recent years was the preparation of the “Dirty Dossier” on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. This compilation of lies was used to launch a disastrous war of aggression that cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

Let us test the alleged automaticity of police investigation, which Jacqui Smith claims had no political direction. Go to

https://online.met.police.uk/report.php

and report the promulgation of the “Dirty Dossier” as a crime of misconduct in public office. Name Tony Blair, Jack Straw, Alistair Campbell, John Scarlett, John Kerr, Peter Ricketts, Richard Stagg and John Williams as the offenders (take my word for it as someone who was in the FCO’s Senior Management Structure of the time, they are the main offenders).

I expect the Met’s response will show the extent to which they are the jackbooted and armed wing of NuLabour, rather than a body interested in actual misconduct in public office.

You have to leave your name and address, but if you have been browsing this website from home or work you are pretty certainly on a list already.

I have sent my report in. Apparently I should hear from a police officer within 72 hours. Perhaps the Nulab anti-terror squad may move even faster!