What Do You Think Today?

[peter]

In a style reminiscent of the Gestapo techniques of old, immigrants and asylum seekers turning up for regular meetings and appointments will shortly be hooked into detention without warning, prior to possible deportation to Rwanda.

Others will recieve the dreaded knock on the door (hopefully not at 2am in the morning) to find officers of the law holding detention warrants their names.

Here we are in Rishi Sunak's England, following the successful passage of the Rwanda Safety Bill through Parliament - and it stinks.

For no more than a political exercise in providing headlines for the Daily Express, people who have already suffered pretty much everything that the world can throw at them, will be herded into detention centers and subjected to a period - who knows how long - of waiting in uncertainty and fear, as to what their future will bring.

Millions of pounds will be spent for this purely electoral exercise, that could be put to a thousand beneficial uses in areas where money is desperately needed to alleviate problems resulting from years of underfunding.

The cruelty and stupidity of the entire project, which Sunak himself was ardently opposed to as Chancellor (the scheme was originally cooked up by that master of political subtlety Boris Johnson) is widely acknowledged, but the Prime Minister is allowed to keep spouting the blatant falsehood that it is being pursued as a "deterrent" to would be Channel crossers.

Timed by coincidence or deliberately (who can say) to coincide with Thursday's local government elections, the operations will no doubt elicit exhaultation and revulsion in equal measure in the general populace, and will cement many people's decisions to vote for or against the Conservatives, both in these forthcoming local elections, and in the general one to come shortly thereafter.

But word has it that if Sunak receives a sufficiently bad drubbing in the local elections this week, the Conservatives might be ready - might, being the operative word - to to gather round the Britania like Penny Mordaunt (she of the upwards pointing sword in the coronation procession of King Charles) and pitch Sunak out of office. They are in fear of an 'extinction level event' at the next general election (if the results are sufficiently bad then the donors flock away and it's effectively game over) and are becoming increasingly worried that Sunak is part of the problem. He's perceived as out of touch - a billionaire elitist with no understanding of the lives of ordinary people - and remote: a man whose background and experiences bear no relationship to their own. And worse, his loyalty to this country is at best skin deep. He suffered significant credibility damage when his maintaining his American citizenship was exposed, and his intention to flee this country as soon as is decently possible once the leadership mantle passes on to someone else is well known.

Well if the Conservatives do badly enough on Thursday it could be sooner than he imagined.

Quite a good result anyway (for everyone but Kier Stamer). Unelected as PM, Sunak would then have been chucked from office before getting the chance for the public to demonstrate just how badly they didn't want him in the first place. Mordaunt would at least be someone who seemed to be in tune with ordinary people. And this of course would be Stamer's nightmare. A new Conservative leader, fresh out of the oven and ready to be given a go. He's leading the polls only by default, insofar as the Tories are doing so badly. No-one actually likes him. In fact his wheedling whining voice, his puppy-dog pleading manner, is grating in the extreme. It's like he's begging you to believe him, pleading for your support. Even a new Conservative option might be better than him. Such will be the thinking on both sides of the political divide, both in and out of Westminster. It could galvanise the Tories to topple Sunak, and it could at least stave off the worst of the predicted electoral armageddon facing the party under him.

Could be an interesting week ahead.

-----0-----

Latest drugs to be hit by shortages. Insulin for diabetics.

That adds to the list of drugs to treat ADHD sufferers, epilepsy controlling drugs, calcium reduction drugs for cancer patients, certain antibiotics, local anaesthetics (lidocaine), ketamine, adrenaline and noradrenaline......

The list goes on.

Brexit? Pandemic? Bit of both?

Doesn't matter really. It's the 'new normal' we're told.

In other words, suck it up!

-----0-----

Shocking scenes at American universities where mobile phone footage shows police manhandling peace activist students who are camping on campuses across the nation.

In two particularly egregious cases, two female university professors are seen being led away by masked police officers, and being literally manhandled to the ground by heavy armoured men. The incidents took place at Emory University, but have been seen replicated elsewhere across the country.

It's a given that had these actions been carried out under a Trump presidency, they would be being reported around the world as evidence of a fascist bent in the American administration, alongside calls for him to be removed. The silence of the liberal West is however, deafening under a Biden administration.

It seems that Israel and America do indeed possess "shared values" when it comes to dealing with protesters against policies and activities it has decided to pursue. This footage shows those values in action.

But as observed by Aaron Bastani at Novara Media, this policy can only backfire on the administration and serve to highlight the cause for which the protesters fight. He observes that the middle class American viewers will be shocked to see not baggy trousered activists with dreadlocks and peace symbols being so manhandled. But rather, 'respectable' people like themselves.

"Hang on," they will say, "These people are like us, like you and me." And these are the people capable of shaping public opinion, of turning their feelings into significant political consequences, by the manner in which they vote.

Israel's hold over the American political scene, said Bastani, has not been troublesome in any way, and has been tolerated, by virtue of its not carrying of a political cost. Now suddenly it could do so. Even the most ardent Zionist must see that it is only the Palestinian cause that benefits from such hostile behaviour. Surely? And such footage can only give ammunition to the Russias, the Chinas, the North Koreas, who will hold it up and say, "Where your democracy now? Where your much vaunted freedom?"

And they'll be right.

[peter]

"It's great! You can grab them by the pussy, and they let you do it!"

This was Donald Trump's most profound political statement - a crude expression of a universal truth that it's all about power and applies just as much to whole nations as it did to the individual women that Trump, with his balls in his brain, was referring to.

Because that's what power allows you to do. To grab anything and everything you want by the pussy. People, nations, hell - the whole damn world if you have enough - and there isn't shit that they can do about it.

And it applies to virtually every leader that ever there was. Certainly all of the ones on the world stage today. Putin, Biden, Zelensky and Netenyahu. Sunak, Cameron, Stamer ,and certainly Trump himself. Any ideas that they might have had about "doing it for the people" were likely only ever a veneer they used to fool themselves as much as anyone else. No-one enters politics without feeling that they have something to offer: it demands by its very nature that you think that you can do better, that you have the insight, the golden ticket, the foresight, to do better than the rest of the herd, and the people who you would seek to replace who currently sit at the top table. And very soon, as soon as you get that first sniff of it, that frisson of sensation when someone below you jumps to your word, then you are hooked.

Oh certainly you will believe you are doing it for your country, the people, the downtrodden - everything you do will be for their benefit in the long run, for the greater good. But in truth its all bullshit. Because the reality is that inside, at the deepest core, it's all about grabbing them by the pussy. All about the power. It's inbuilt into the huge majority of people that ever find their way into high office, subconsciously or otherwise.

And it's why nothing ever gets any better. Why no matter whose hand sits on the tiller, nothing seems to change. The rich get richer, those with power more powerful, and the ones holding the shit end of the stick will always remain so.

It's a profoundly depressing truth, but there is no salvation for the common people in our politicians. No rescuing the world from its plight by those whose hands hold the reins of power. If there is to be change it will not come via our polities.

There was one man who broke this mould and by virtue of this was genuinely the only man fit to hold power in this generation -and that was because he didn't want it.

I refer of course to Jeremy Corbyn.

He sat quietly as a backbench MP for Islington North for twenty plus years. He never attempted to run for high office, being content to represent his constituency and to stand up for the underdog, the oppressed and vulnerable, wherever he saw them.

It was not his idea to run for the Labour leadership, but that of the smarmy power seeker Chukka Umuna, who put his name forward as a joke, in order to show that 'the left' could still be included in a leadership contest too. He was supposed to be humiliated. Umuna, a true Blairite right wing Labour hopeful, expected Corbyn to be massacred in the leadership election, but something about the mild mannered politician from Islington struck home with the membership.

And this was exactly it. He didn't want power and you could see it. It made him appealing in a way that no other politician could buy for love nor money.

Even when he achieved high office, the Leader of the Opposition, he still didn't want to be in power. He stuck to his principles in a way that should make Kier Stamer curl up and shrivel away. It cost him everything: there was no way that this approach could secure him leadership of the country against the combined forces of the establishment and even his own political party. The pussy grabbers were always going to bring him down, to find a way to destroy him. He was alone, like Daniel in the lions den, but without a saviour looking down on him. Because he was swimming in shark infested waters without the natural defences that hunger for power provide you.

And as quickly as he came, unwillingly to power, he was gone. It had no hold on him. He could, even after leaving the leadership, even now, stand as a workers party representative and people would flock to him. But he doesn't want to. The idea of being a Farage like outrider for the left has no appeal to him. He's back (for the time being, until the next election) in Islington North, doing what he always wanted to do. Represent his constituents.Speaking up for the minority.

And this is why he was the only man fit to run this country, any country, and why he could have done what none of our big political names will ever do, and bring about change for the little people. Because he didn't want to.

This was what our establishment took away when they brought down Corbyn. The choice of the people, who saw without grasping it, that he was something different. You might not believe it, but this world desperately needs some Corbyns - as many as can be found, and sitting at the top of as many countries that would have them. It won't happen though. The pussy grabbers have got a hold and they ain't letting go!

[peter]

News is sparse, but as I post it appears that the police are in the process of clearing out the protesters from Colombia University, where for 24 hours they have been occupying a faculty building, beyond the perimeter of the 'peace-camp' in which they have been living for some weeks now.

The police, ever ready to seize an opportunity, are also clearing the said camp as well.

Let's hope it doesn't turn into a Kent State University situation.

The students are demanding that their universities stop investing in Israel based companies while the Gaza conflict is ongoing, and have been occupying sites on campuses across the country in an attempt to bring this about. Perish the thought however that a few tens of thousands of dead Palestinians should get in the way of a sound investment.

As the man said, there's good, there's evil, and there's banking.

-----0-----

Government plans to lift the fifty percent limit on admissions based on faith currently in place on faith based schools are ongoing.

This would allow a given school to select 100 percent of its students on the basis of their faith, say Roman Catholic or Muslim, instead of the 50 percent currently allowed.

At a time when cross-cultural tensions are already seeing fractures emerge between the various ethnic and religious groupings that make up our society, it seems to me that anything which increases our understanding of each other has to be a good thing. And the free mixing of children from different backgrounds before they have picked up the cultural baggage that can bring about tensions in older people seems only to the good to me.

I'd go further than the fifty percent currently allowed and say that there should be 100 percent random selection in terms of ethnicity and religion in any given school. In short, there should be no faith based schools, and the only reference to religion should be in the course of history lessons, where uncritical and unbiased presentation of the historical facts should be adhered to. This business of parents choosing to send their children to faith based schools is an expression of their believed ownership of their children - an, "I'm this way and I want my child to be this way too," attitude. It's all wrong. A kid has the right to an education unencumbered by all of that cultural nonsense, and if, as adults, they choose to employ a particular set of rules to their own lives then so be it. But under those circumstances a sustained period of education in the company of a broad mix of children from different backgrounds, children with whom they will have formed bonds of friendship and respect that sit outside such stifling parameters, can only serve to be a benefit. To see the point of view of the other, while still remaining faithful to your own, would be a consequence greatly to be desired, if our many different cultures are to coexist peaceably, and the time to start this (and not least, provide the environment in which it can be achieved) is in the schooling of children from their earliest years. No child is born judging another on the basis of his faith or the colour of his skin. These traits have to be learned, and the schools to which we send our children should play no part in such an education.

Needless to say, the Conservative thinking that 'white is right' doesn't see it this way and has no problem with the cultural divisions of our society getting wider and wider until they break down altogether. With their sustained program of anti-Muslim propoganda that has been ongoing for years, and the part that it is currently playing in our politics at this very moment, how could you doubt it. Rishi Sunak is basing his whole election strategy around the othering of migrants (read Muslims) and the Conservative right are sucking it up like spaghetti. The howls of outrage in our media about the ongoing weekly peace protests are yet another expression of it. It's not because it's a protest per sey - it's because it is a protest where Muslim people are front stage and center. It's a protest about the treatment of more Muslims somewhere else in the world, in a place where our allies are strutting their own stuff with our support - and Muslims are complaining about it. What are we - a Muslim country now? And so if you want to send your kids to a school where they won't be exposed to these 'other cultures', then why not? And the blacks and the Muslims - let them mix with their own as well.

This is the way the cultural divisions of the future are seeded. The token black at Eton might be okay, the odd Hindu and Muslim dotted here and there (after all - even Bunter had his Huree Jasmet Ram Singh in the Famous Five Remove).....but to have the kids mixing, their kids learning our ways, our kids learning theirs? No, no, no: it simply doesn't do!

[Avatar]

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

--A

[peter]

Exactly! Gilbram's words - wise as ever!

-----0-----

The television news, who's reporting on the events occurring on US campuses I was eager to see, lived entirely up to my expectations.

Across the country, police forces had moved in, in force, to clear the peaceful camps that had been set up in support of stopping the violence in Gaza, and to encourage the universities in question to cease links with Israeli based companies until such was achieved. Netenyahu had previously called for the protest camps to be cleared and true to his request, the American authorities responded.

As predictable, the protesters declined to be removed and brutal enforcement of the orders were then carried out, which involved the bodily dragging and manhandling of the students into vans, and away under arrest. Hundreds were apparently detained in this way.

This was to be expected. It's how the American police and National Guard do things.

But more concerning perhaps - if the use of state sactioned violence in order to suppress free and peaceful protest is not enough for you - were the scenes at some universities, where groups of pro-Israeli counter-protesters armed with staves and missiles, attacked the peace protesters with hatred and brutality clearly visible for all to see. Peace protesters at the University of California, shielding behind makeshift barriers of plywood boards, were pelted with stones and bottles by abuse hurling youths, without police visibly in sight doing anything to stop it. The boarding was pulled down and the thugs with staves went to work, hitting and screaming at the camp inhabitants now fully exposed to their fury.

Film footage clearly shows the one-sided nature of the aggressive violence that occurred here, but by the time it had found its way onto the BBC News it had become, "Clashes between rival groups of protesters."

This is exactly the same trick as has been used since day one of the Israel-Palestinian troubles, but more egregiously employed.. The suggestion of equivalence by the careful use of words. Normally it is employed to suggest a tit-for-tat equivalence between attacks going on from one side to the other and back again, when nothing could be further from the truth. The disparity of power between the Israeli and Palestinian sides, the disparity of the price exacted from each side and the basic wrong which underpins the whole conflict (just the wrong word to describe such an unequal battle, but I continue) - these are masked and skirted around by this use of language suggesting equivalence.

And now we see it done in respect of the violence being inflicted on the camps in America. The BBC could not bring themselves not to show the footage of the University of California attack, but even as it was carrying on before our eyes, as you could visibly see the one group doing the attacking, and the other trying desperately to protect itself behind its shields of wood, still it was "Rival protesters clashing."

It wasn't. It was the pro Palestinian peace camps being attacked but furious mobs of pro Israeli activists. And nothing was done by the police to stop it. If you don't believe me, go look for yourself.

When your news is presented in this distorted fashion, contorted to screaming point against the very evidence in front of your eyes, then my friends, you know that you have a problem. That something deeply, deeply serious has gone wrong with the systems you live under, the very countries you love.

-----0-----

But that wasn't the lead story last night.

The 6 o'clock News ran with the interview of the father of a 7 year old girl, an immigrant who had a few nights previously tried to enter a boat along with large numbers of other migrants, and who had become separated from his daughter who had subsequently been crushed to death in the mele that followed.

The BBC had shown footage taken from the beach on the night of the tragedy, and in essence, two rival gangs of smugglers had sent their own particular groups of fee paying 'customers' to the same boat.

Such was the desperation to secure places on this boat that a mad scramble occurred, within which, heart-rendingly, the little girl can be seen on her fathers shoulders in the middle of the throng.

As I said, they became separated in the crush, and the father, unable to reach his daughter, was forced back to the shore. The French police, who were there, were completely unable or unwilling to enter the fray, and had withdrawn to a distance while these scenes unfolded. When later,the boat was unloaded, the child was found, crushed and dead, beneath the feet of the packed bodies above her. The BBC had managed to track her father down and now interviewed him on the circumstances of his daughters death, mere days before.

Clearly distraught and battling the guilt which he (rightly in my opinion) was feeling, he told of his years of having reposed in Denmark and Sweden, since leaving his native Iraq in 2008. His multiple failed asylum applications and his movements from country to country (during which time he had married and fathered the child) in an attempt to find a home for himself and his family. Finally under threat of deportation back to Iraq, he had left the Nordic countries and made his way to France with a plan to enter the UK. He'd tried on multiple occasions before to get onto a boat, but had never been successful. Now his attempts had ended in tragedy and he was beside himself with grief.

Today, in the UK, that man if he lands, will find himself immediately transferred to a detention center, to await deportation to Rwanda. He will constitute an illegal immigrant and as such will have no rights of asylum application to this country. Because yesterday, as this morning's Mail joyfully reports, we began rounding up potential deportees for holding until such time as the planes start taking off.

Under the title "Day That Rwanda Became a Reality", the article runs as follows.

The first migrants earmarked for removal to Rwanda were detained yesterday. The dramatic immigration raids werea major boost for Rishi Sunak as millions of voters head to the polls in today's local elections. [....] Images showed handcuffed migrants being placed into prison style vans following an undisclosed number of arrests nationwide. Furthur operations are planned.

Do I need to say more?

[peter]

The 2019 general election was the Brexit election.

It totally dominated the campaigns, skewed voting patterns, and threw up results that upended decades of voting traditions and re-drew a political map that had been static for generations.

The forthcoming one should in reality be back to business as usual, but due to the combined hits of Brexit, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, threatens to be anything but. Add to this the fact that the Tories are tired, in Government, in Parliament and in the country more generally, and you have yet another voting day coming, that could further break the mold of years gone by,and usher in something completely new.

Both Labour and the Conservatives were incensed when George Galloway won in Rochdale with the biggest voter turnaround in electoral history. He was outspokenly opposed to just about everything that both of the main parties stood for, and adept at making his voice heard. Rishi Sunak called it an affront to democracy, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was talking about a man who had just been voted into Parliament by the British public, while he himself held the prime office in the country without a single vote being cast in his name.

Galloway is the self styled leader of the Workers Party, a new political party put up to represent the interests of working people in the traditional manner - a manner long since abandoned by the Labour Party, traditional home of the working man. As such, Galloway could seem like a political dinosaur, but there's no getting away that the 'average working man' (if such a thing exists) is a pretty old-school thinking individual as well. Add that to the feeling of having been abandoned by their own party, their feeling the pinch as their wages fall behind, their working conditions worsten, and are ripe for the picking by someone with Galloway's oratorical skills.

Similarly on the right, the Reform Party are reaping a bountiful harvest from the abject disarray that the Conservatives find themselves in. At last looking, they were sitting at around twelve points in the polls, only four odd points behind the Conservatives themselves. Galloway's Workers Party has for its part, stormed into the polls itself and for a brand new party, has doubled its ratings in a number of weeks. Tory voters in the constituencies are disillusioned with their pary to say the least and are flocking to Reform, and Labour voters who find Stamer's Blairite vision not in their interest, are looking at the Workers Party with interest.

Against this backdrop Galloway made a claim that he would field a candidate in every constituency in the country, mirroring a previous statement made by Richard Tice, Reform UK leader, to a similar effect. The only problem was he didn't have any. Well a couple of days ago he changed all of that. In a statement followed by a series of interviews, the Glaswegian firebrand gave a list of 200 candidates that would be running for Parliament under the Workers Party flag, and said that there would be "more to follow".

Now in our two party system, its near impossible for third parties to get any kind of tilt at power, not least if they are well established like the Lib-dems or Greens, but for new parties starting from scratch it's near about impossible. The first past the post system ensures that the two major parties, Labour and Conservative, share the power between them, with none of the smaller parties ever getting a look in except under exceptional circumstances (think the Tory coalition with the Lib-dems when Cameron didn't have sufficient MPs to form a government, or Theresa May's agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party in order to prop up her failed attempt to build on the Tory majority post Brexit). As an illustrative case in point, Farage's Brexit Party won 12 percent of the vote in 2016, but won only 4 seats out of 650.

Galloway's stated intention didn't get much press coverage, and those that did comment tended to be dismissive. Choose how many people voted for him - or indeed for Reform, they weren't going to win seats. First passed the post would see to that. (Yeah - I don't know which is right either - passed or past, and I can't be bothered to check: you know what I mean.) But this I think, is to miss the point. Galloway is not a fool. He's a seasoned politician. He knows he can't win more than a few seats. But as he said in his presentation, he sees The Workers Party as the left wing equivalent of Reform. The one is to the Labour Party as the other is to the Conservatives. And they are going to steal votes!

In large numbers of the 650 constituencies, the presence of either Reform or Workers Party candidates (or both) will alter the result. Votes to the two main parties will be split. MPs will be returned that would not otherwise have won and the face of the election result will be changed. This will be hugely significant for Labour policy in particular, going forward, if they win as predicted. The net result if Galloway's Workers Party can gain traction, is likely to be that the Labour win will be much reduced. His stonking majority will be denied to Stamer, and suddenly his interest in proportional representation will be revived!

Back in the early days, when languishing in the doldrums following the Corbyn defeat, Stamer as new leader of the Labour Party, had been much more receptive to the idea of electoral reform than he is now. But as his authority grew, as the fortunes of the Tories fell and Labour's rose, gradually it seemed less important. Proportional representation is something only loosers want. If you have the chance - a good chance - of attaining full and unbridled power, then why for are you going to want to share it? (Yes - it's that old power thing again;I spoke of it above.) But that interest will come sweeping back in the moment the realisation hits that if he doesn't make moves towards electoral reform, then his chances ov ever getting another bite at the power cherry are virtually zilch. As Labour, having gone up like the rocket, threatens to come down like the stick, suddenly he'll be thinking that shared power is better than none at all, and then PR will seem like perhaps a good idea after all.

And Galloway knows this. Once having upset the apple-cart in the forthcoming election, who can say what the game will be in the following one. That'll be two elections in a row that have broken the traditional mold. Suddenly it starts looking broken for good. Throw PR into the mix and, hey - now you're cooking. And once the two-party duopoly is broken then the sky's the limit. This is the game he is playing: the long game. And the majority of our political commentators are too short sighted to see it.

[peter]

(Related to the above.)

If you believe, like me, that the first step towards meaningful change in this country is the breaking of the two party stranglehold that has gripped our political system for, well, pretty much forever, then now is the first time in many a year that the situation presents itself to do so.

It cannot be lost on either Galloway or Tice that if they both run candidates in every constituency, they run the risk of effectively cancelling each other out when the nation goes to the polls. On this thinking, the clever money has to be for the two of them to get together, privately, and to agree to split the country up such that the effect of their standing is to bring about a hung parliament. This would mean not standing against each other in seats where either one or the other could likely split the vote of the leading contender (but only if the other did not stand), and cause their failure to win. They could carefully position their candidates, one or the other, on a seat by seat basis, to bring about the desired effect of there being no effective winner in the election. This would create the circumstances where the electoral reform that both need equally, would be a condition upon which any kind of coalition or confidence and supply arrangement would rest. In this way the two party system could be broken.

As I say, this would require a degree of cooperation between Galloway and Tice that I'm not sure either is capable of.

So what is the ordinary voter to do under such circumstances? How can he really make his vote count?

I think the thing is to forget who you would want to win - it doesn't really matter if either of the two main parties get in with majorities, nothing much is going to change. The thing is rather to concentrate on effecting the result in your own constituency. In my constituency for example, we have a Conservative MP with around 25,000 votes and a majority of 4,000 ish over her nearest rival. The Labour candidate took around 22,000 votes in 2019, and next came the Lib-dems on around 7,000.

So if my intention is to see the Tory MP unseated, then the clever money is a simple vote for Labour.

But if only life were that simple. I don't want to see a Stamer majority, so in the face of his likely winning hugely across the country, should I better then, vote for the Conservative candidate (on the basis of trying to create that hung parliament that I'm so wanting)? Or should I remember that my constituency was, prior to 2019 , traditionally a Lib-dem and Conservative shared seat? Maybe many of those deserting the tories will revert to type and return to the Lib-dem fold? Or will they see Stamer as I do - essentially a Tory in all but name - and therefore be happy enough to vote for him? (They won't care about the individual who is standing, that's for sure; they'll be voting on a national, and most probably leadership basis.) And what will the effect of Reform and Workers Party candidates be? How many tories will be disaffected right wingers who'll naturally gravitate to Reform? Similarly, how many Labour voters will be repelled by Stamer's turncoat socialism-that-isn't? His broken promises and betrayal of Corbyn? These guys will be ripe to move to the Workers Party with their votes.

So these are the balls I have to juggle when deciding where to cast my vote. If I want to see a hung parliament then I have some serious thinking to do and thinking that may yet see me voting Conservative. Stranger things have happened, but hell, I'd have to pinch my nose!

[peter]

The Conservatives recieved their predicted drubbing in the local elections, tail end results of which are still dribbling in.

It wasn't sufficiently bad for them to immediately round on Sunak and fling him out of office (Stamer will be heaving a sigh of relief), but it wasn't good either.

In truth it was really just more of the same - a continuation of the dire results of by-elections and other votes of the past couple of years, neither better nor worse for them. The Tory supporting media (those who reported on it - local election results are not exactly attention grabbing headlines) consoled themselves by saying that the results were not so bad as had been feared, but all conceded that the PM has a serious challenge ahead of him, if he is to reverse the situation before the general election later in the year.

The general trend was for Tories to loose control of councils up and down the country, but they did manage to hold onto a significant mayoral position in Teesside, which raised spirits a fraction. The general consensus is that Sunak will live to fight another day, and will lead the party into the next election, which, one gets the feeling, most Tories now accept is a lost cause. They seem resigned to a period of opposition - possibly over two, maybe three terms - until the cycle repeats itself and Labour run out of steam in their turn. About 3 electoral cycles seems to be the maximum a party can hold office before stagnation sets in and they simply fizzle out. No-one can say that the last one has been without incident. History books will cover the last 14 years (banking crash fallout, austerity, Brexit, pandemic, Ukraine, Gaza) and the Tories part in it for centuries to come. I suspect it will shape the future course of this nation and see us repositioned much further down the league table of nations than we have hitherto been used to.

And as if on que, the Telegraph yesterday printed a very small piece on the front page, saying that by the year 2030, Brexit Britain was predicted to have a smaller GDP than Poland. Granted it was a quote from the now Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk (ex President of the European Council), but based on projections made by economists employed by Labour, but one was still suprised to see it reported in the Telegraph. This may or may not come to pass, but only the most stubborn and knuckle-headed observers can still believe that leaving the EU was not an economic disaster for the UK.

But notice the italics. Because in the current situation in Europe, they actually signify a lot.

There is increasing evidence that the EU, along with America, is prepared to stop at nothing in order to maintain its dual hegemonic control of the world economy. Well, nothing short (in the American case at least) of seeing its own 'boots on the ground' in the various conflicts it will involve itself in to this end.

In the Ukraine this means stoking the conflict with continual arms and financial support, continuous egging on of Zelensky and refusal to countenance any kind of diplomatic solution with the Russians. Similarly in Israel it means unconditional support for the country, irrespective of whatever crimes against humanity are commited in the process, and the continuing to turn a blind eye to what is visibly coming out of Gaza in the form of reports and eyewitness accounts, of the brutal suppression of the Palestinian people therein. On the former, the Russian Foreign Minister's comment that the USA was prepared to see every single Ukrainian soldier die in pursuit of winning the war looks increasingly true, and the same can be said for the EU. The war is bringing untold benefits to the armaments industry in both Europe and the USA, and shareholders have never had it so good. The idea of loosing the hegemonic control they've enjoyed over the world economy since the fall of communism is anathema to them, and brining about regime change in Russia is part of the strategy to avoid this. And Ukraine itself is not poor in resources, be they untapped as yet. The maintenance of the war against Putin is part of the rearguard action to stave off the loss of US-Western dominance of the world economy, and a few hundred thousand Ukrainian lives are a small price to pay for this. And if Putin must be painted as Hitler reborn to justify it, then paint on!

Israel can be seen somewhat differently. One American president said that the continued presence of the Israeli state in the Middle East was so important to American interests that it would be supported to the end of time. "If Israel did not exist," he went on to say, "America would have to invent it!"

This absolutely sums up the relationship between Israel and America. Israel, for all of its vaunted spirit of independence, could not exist without American support. It can be seen as the American arm in the Middle East. It's the foothold that America keeps in the region and can barely be viewed as an independent state at all. While the people of America go without a state health service or subsidised public services, Israel enjoys these things paid for by American taxes. The use of their hard earned taxes to support the living of people in Israel - people enjoying benefits that they are denied - is something that the American people really need to think about. And when this money is used to support the ongoing subjugation of the native population, to finance murder and oppression, the continued denial of the Palestinian right to equal and shared existence in their own historic lands - well, enough said. And the EU (and Germany in particular) is balls deep in this relationship. The Middle East is still the oil reserve of the world and we in the West are damned if we're not going to call the shots in the region, or at least have the lions share of the distribution.

So for these reasons alone, I'm no longer sure that I want any part in it. I'm beginning to understand why Jeremy Corbyn was less than enamoured with the EU - their attitude to the Ukrainian war and the Gaza conflict has to a degree caused the scales to fall from my eyes. Yes, certainly we are paying a huge economic price for leaving. But if being outside brings us at some point to a place where we can exercise our independence, express our unhappiness with the idea that other people's lives can be broken the anvil of maintaining the Western hegemony......then suddenly I see some desirability in it. I'm not the slightest bit interested in where we sit on the table of world wealth: not if our position comes on the back of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers lying dead on the field of battle. Not if it means the subjugation and expulsion of the Palestinian people from their own lands. A multi-polar world holds no fear for me, and I'm amazed that so many of our leaders are so terrified by the prospect. Maybe they have much more to loose than I do? Maybe they are afraid that if other centers of power develop, then some of the nation's who have suffered under the 'benevolent' yoke of our colonial past might decide that perhaps it's time we experienced a bit of what we so blithely and generously dispensed to the other people's of the world? Perhaps that's it.

Anyways, I'll be long gone when it all comes home to rest, but it's worth thinking about.

[peter]

What a different a day makes.

24 Hours ago, the Tories were bruised but not beaten in a set of non-parliamentary elections that saw them do as badly as predicted, but no worse. Today it's all change as the final icing on the cake of their defeat delivered a couple of very significant blows to the kidneys.

Firstly, high profile and very well regarded Conservative Mayor of West Midlands, Andy Street lost his seat of 7 years, following a campaign in which he did everything he could to distance himself from his toxic Conservative brand, but to no avail. And secondly London Mayor, much despised by the Tories, Sadiq Khan, kept his. Khan (Labour) had been widely predicted to fall, but instead retained his seat while his northern rival Street fell instead.

Street hadn't even mentioned his being a Conservative candidate in his manifesto, concentrating rather on his local achievements (which have in fairness been notable), but despite this, his association with the increasingly unpopular Tories was enough to scupper him. He'll be well pissed and will be dearly regretting not having severed his connection to the Party and run as an independent, under which banner he almost definitely would have won. It wouldn't suprise me to see him defect to Labour in the near future. As the man regarded as the most powerful individual outside of Westminster (alongside Khan) he wasn't by any means a dyed in the wool Tory, yet his political career lies in ruins because of his being tarred with the Tory brush. Khan on the other hand, is not popular (mostly because of his introduction of the low emissions ULEZ charges in the London environs) but even so, Londoners still held their noses and voted for him, rather than vote for a Conservative competitor. This alone, shows the true level of antipathy that has built up against our ruling party amongst the people; that the candidate people liked should loose and the one they disliked should win (in another area) both purely on the background of the party they did, or didn't, represent. Taking the combined population of London and the West Midlands, you've got a hefty slice of the population, and the strength of feeling behind these results will not go unnoticed by the Conservative MPs of Westminster. Sunak's brief reprise of yesterday could well come crashing down around his ears today as the WhatsApp messages begin flying between Tory backbenchers.

Let's see what tomorrow brings. I'm doubtful that Sunak's detractors within the Conservative Party - those who want him out before the election, because they fear an existential event if he leads them into it - will gather the momentum to achieve their desires, but it's by no means a done deal that he'll survive. This is absolutely the last chance to oust him and get a damage limitation candidate up in time for the election, and this is exactly what the messaging between Tory MPs today will be emphasising. In my opinion they'd have nothing to loose by trying it, and possibly quite significant advantage to gain. Until the West Midlands and London results came in yesterday, despite all of the media hype of Kier Stamer's huge poll lead, the results if extrapolated to a general election, did not equate to Stamer winning a majority in the forthcoming general election. Granted the situation may now be a little bit more favorable to Labour, but only a little. The putting up of a new Conservative leader, not tainted by, well, just being Sunak, could easily turn the tables on Stamer and deny him his majority (or even achieve the seemingly impossible and snatch victory back from the jaws of defeat). Stamer's stance on Gaza has cost him dear with the Muslim vote, and he could yet pay a real price for his support of the unsupportable. It must never be forgotten, the scale of the turnaround that Stamer has to achieve (in terms of seat gains) in order to win a majority. It would be as unprecedented as the Johnson victory was for the Conservatives in 2019.

Neil Kinnock was in just the same high position as Stamer in the polls back in the 80's, and he saw his lead shrivel away and dissappear before he lost to the Tories. It could just as easily happen to Stamer and he knows it. He'll be a worried man and will be praying - praying - that the Tories don't rally together to change their leader before the election. Me - I'm praying the same. I want this two party system broken and to achieve this much desired event requires a well hung parliament. This is most likely achieved by a weakened Stamer versus a scorned Sunak. That and two strong and clearly defined alternatives on the right and left hand sides of them. Galloway - Stamer - Sunak - Farage/Tice. That'll work it.

(And to end on my Sunday light note, I saw a news article during the week in which Conservative leadership hopeful Penny Mordaunt, expressing her displeasure at the use of her name as the potential replacement to the beleaguered PM, said, "I'm not prepared to be wheeled into Downing Street like a new boiler just to replace Rishi Sunak." Better than as an old boiler to replace Stamer I'd suggest! )

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LOL, I just saw an article in which some Conservative MP said Sunak should listen to the voters and swing further right...because that's obviously why they're losing...people think they arr too liberal...

--A

[peter]

That could have been the Suella Braverman article in the Telegraph Av. She's been out there pushing that option, but it's been rejected by other prominent tories, eg Andrew Street (just narrowly defeated in the West Midlands mayoral election).

But despite much criticism of his position, it looks like Sunak will hold on. Everyone agrees he's doing a poor job at getting the Conservative message out there - some believe that the message is simply the wrong one - but no-one is prepared to do anything about it.

In one paper today Sunak himself is quoted as predicting a hung parliament - as though this is a win! The outlook is so dire for the Tories that they see this as a virtual win. He says that a Labour government propped up by Lib-dems. Greens and the SNP would be as disaster for the country. Given what his party has done to the country over the past fourteen years I'll take that with a pinch of salt.

Street's coming out against a rightwards shift in response to the local election drubbing (the worst for the tories for 40 years) is a signal (I think) that he's ready to jump ship. Probably not immediately, but he's bound to be pissed at his membership of the Tories having cost him his position as West Midlands mayor - a position he clearly thrived in, and might not want to spend ten years in the political wilderness while Labour call the shots. (He might however just bide his time and then go for the Tory leadership as the centrist candidate. Leader of the Opposition would keep him up there in the big-time and give him time to get the Tory house in order.) Either way, he's a name to watch.

But I tend to agree that this is not nearly as done a deal for Stamer's Labour Party as the media would seem to have it. There's too many variables, too many swing voters in too many borderline seats. A minority Labour win with the aforementioned parties supporting them, on a promise of bringing in proportional representation would do for me.

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See that the Netenyahu government in Israel moved to shut down free speech by shutting down the local offices of Al Jazeera, following a vote in the Kneset to close down the satellite news network's operations in the country.

Considered a threat to national security, presumably because of its relentless reporting from Gaza throughout the conflict, the action has caused concerns about the attitude of the administration in respect of free speech. Whether the channel has been actively inciting anti-Israeli activity in the Strip, or merely reporting on what is actually transpiring there I can't say, but it's no secret that even the latter is considered to be against the interests of the state by the Netenyahu government. UK journalists are banned from entry into Gaza and presumably Al Jazeera has been using the reports of Palestinian journalists within the occupied territory itself to circumvent similar bans on journalists from other countries as well.

Reports that 100,000 people have been encouraged by the IDF to remove themselves from certain areas of Rafa indicate that activities are about to commence in the city. This against the recommendation of just about every one of Israel's allies, who fear huge numbers of civilian casualties if offensive operations were to be carried out within the massively overcrowded area.

It must be a considerable nuisance to have to carry out their plans under the watchful eyes of the media, and no less so to have their actions being reported in real time by the likes of Al Jazeera. No wonder that Netenyahu wants this particular source of information closed off. Controlling the narrative is something that Israel has always excelled at, but it's getting increasingly difficult in an age of smart phones and instantaneous reportage.

Anyway, let's see how it pans out and pray that the situation will not descend into the horror which could easily result from carelessly mounted offences. As usual, only the innocent suffer from such tactics - all the more important then that non-state agencies are there to witness the operations, if for no other reason than this.

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In war, truth is the first casualty.

--A

[peter]

In my years of going to restaurants, large and small, I've been to many in which a small corridor led to a single WC, used by anyone needing to 'make themselves comfortable' while on the premises.

It's never been a problem - all of the necessary 'accoutrements' are available (bowl, sink and mirror etc) and with no communal area prior to the toilet itself, the need for a single sex space is not really relevant.

But now the Conservative government has decided in its wisdom, that no new cafes or restaurants should be licensed that do not have single sex lavatory facilities.

This seems to me to be putting obstacles in front of enterprising individuals just for the sake of satisfying current social trends. Kemi Badenoch, who is a keen proponent behind this legislation, says it's about ensuring that safe spaces for women are available at all such venues. I've never myself noticed that the small loos I'm referring to were particularly unsafe spaces, for women or anyone else, but perhaps I'm just insensitive to such things.

But from the supposedly party of business, I'd have thought that this entirely unnecessary piece of legislation would be seen for what it will obviously be - a barrier to the setting up of many potentially successful small businesses by virtue of inability to satisfy the single sex lavatory requirements. Exactly what we don't need as we struggle to rebuild ourselves following the multiple crippling body blows we have suffered as a nation.

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The BBC were keen to report that Hamas had agreed to the terms of a ceasefire agreement on their evening bulletin last night, but the celebratory scenes of jubilant Palestinians dancing in the rubble of Gaza were, it seems, premature. Israel has said that the terms agreed by the Hamas delegation do not begin to approach its own terms upon which a ceasefire (let alone a permanent end to hostilities) could be based, but that it will continue to examine ways in which this might be achieved, until every possibility is exhausted.

But meanwhile, and in the face of a small intimation that Hamas might even be prepared to abandon its armed struggle for less aggressive means, Israel is adamant that the Rafa offensive will be initiated. To this end, bombing has begun in the eastern part of the city (where leaflet drops had previously told citizens and refugees to evacuate). This won't be pleasing news to all of Israel's hard pressed allies, who have been virtually begging Netenyahu to resist from the attack, but this won't deter him.

Because he has problems of his own.

His cabinet is on the verge of complete collapse with hardliners such as the defence minister Yoav Gallant threatening to bring the government down if the Rafa offensive does not go ahead. Clearly the possibility of mass human death and injury is of little concern to them in the face of their stated wider aim of the complete destruction of Hamas (and their unstated one of the clearing of Palestinians from Gaza). Netenyahu is between a rock and a hard place indeed, and is clearly trying to walk a thin line between satisfying his allies abroad and the opposing demands of his cabinet. And Palestinians will die on the back of this tightrope walking act.

Hardliners are saying that the Hamas offer is a ruse to throw Israel into a bad light, and that they have no intention of Israel ever taking up the offer. Which, if it is indeed the case, should in my mind give Israel every cause to do so. If,as claimed, Hamas are playing games, then let it be shown to be so. Let the Palestinians of Gaza see that their wellbeing is secondary in the eyes of their leadership, to that of the broader cause of Palestinian statehood. That they (the leadership) are prepared to see them (the Palestinian occupants of Gaza) broken on the anvil of political advantage. This, I'd think, would do more to advance the Israeli cause of the elimination of Hamas than any amount of bombing of Rafa.

And if Hamas are not playing silly buggers, but are genuine in their offer, then surely this is something to be desired and built upon. This could be a real road out of the mess that Netenyahu has engineered himself into, and one too potentially good to miss. But if it flies in the face of a hidden desire to see all Palestinians out of the area and the creation of a Greater Israel (from the river to the sea, as it were), then of course it will be a non-starter.

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This seems to me to be putting obstacles in front of enterprising individuals just for the sake of satisfying current social trends.

I thought the current social trends were for unisex / gender neutral bathrooms... In which case those small restaurants should be on top of the pile.

As for Israel / Gaza...it's kinda traditional for Israel to offer deals that they know full well the Palestinians won't accept, and then say "Well, we offered them a deal and they said no, so..."

--A

[peter]

This time it appears to have been the other way around Av. If I'm getting it right Hamas had accepted a set of proposals for a ceasefire in which they agreed to the release of three hostages per week as long as the ceasefire persisted. I think that the conditions were brokered by the US, Qatar and Egypt (as mediators between the two sides), but it seems that they had not gained Israel's agreement to the terms prior to putting it to Hamas (a basic prerequisite I'd have thought).

Israel has said that Hamas has only agreed to the terms because it knows that Israel is on the verge of beginning its Rafa offensive, and is more interested in making Israel look like the aggressor, than any genuine desire or intent to halt the conflict. Maybe, but under this reasoning the clever money would surely be for Israel to accept the deal (thereby calling the Hamas bluff)?

But if I have it right, Netenyahu is so hog-tied by his cabinet adversaries and their promise to bring down his government if he fails to act in Rafa, that it's almost impossible for him not to do so (added to which, he had the additional incentive that the moment he's out of power, he will face criminal corruption charges that could see him in jail). This aside, the failure to accept the deal will not go down well with the hostage families, who are becoming increasingly vocal in their condemnation of Netenyahu's failure to see the return of their loved ones. This last refusal on his part might well be seen as evidence that the return of the hostages is not his top priority here at all.

The offensive in Rafa that has been carried out, has been very limited, but nevertheless news has been released today saying that two deliveries of American arms have been recalled - or more correctly were recalled late last week, shortly prior to their due landing time in Israel. The ships concerned were apparently turned around without their cargo being landed, but whether this decision was made as a result of American impatience with Netanyahu's insistence that he would be carrying out his offensive in Rafa, despite US requests not to do so, is not clear.

As ever, there is simply too much politics involved on all sides of this conflict for anything to ever be straightforward. Biden is himself taking damage from his support of Israel and is walking his own tightrope between damage caused by loosing the Muslim and young people's vote over his support, and damage sustained if he draws back on that support from the backlash of the Jewish lobby. The Biden-Netenyahu-Gallant standoff is a balancing act upon which the lives of thousands depend. The really bad news is that aid has virtually ceased to flow into Gaza again since the weekend, particularly across the Sinai-Rafa crossing which Israel has effectively taken full military control of. This means you have a beleaguered population with countless numbers of injured people, no functional health service and no medical aid or petrol (vital for the pumping of water amongst other things) being able to get in. Conditions enough for a humanitarian disaster without the need for bombs dropping on their heads from the sky, I'd say.

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Reassuring news for anyone who received the Astra-Zeneca covid vaccination - the one that was hailed on British televisions during the pandemic as the new miracle weapon in the fight against the disease - it's being withdrawn from use......worldwide.

I remember shouting at the top of my voice from these very hallowed pages, that the use of essentially untested vaccines (or ones in which the proper testing protocols had not been adhered to) was a bad, bad, idea.

Now, months after the company was forced to admit in court, that it knew that the product could cause "a rare and dangerous side effect," the product has been pulled altogether.

Needless to say, I've been injected with at least two doses of the beastly stuff.

And this is of course only the side effect that manifests itself in a manner that is easily observable such that causality can be established. What underlying long-term effects lie hidden in our genetic material, our immune systems, our general health and ability to fight disease is anyone's guess. In the normal course of vaccination testing, these products would not even now have completed their clinical trials. The really bad stuff they are capable of would only now be coming out. And remember that these were by no definition 'normal vaccines': they relied on technology and modes of action that were nothing like that which any previous vaccination had utilised, and thus no knowledge of the general principles of their use could be known. There were no patterns of long established data allowing the developers/testers to make reasoned predictions regarding any information that was coming in about them.

I remember those two scientists from Oxford University (or some private company they had formed therein) who were showered with adulation on our tv screens, and who were predicted to become millionaires overnight. Well if you're reading this, would you mind getting in touch and sending me some of that mullah you apparently raked in from your dodgy product. No? Not happening? Ahh - I see. You prefer to hang onto your profits for yourselves, never mind the poor schmucks who succumbed to those "rare and dangerous" side effects that you forgot to tell us about when they arose. Still, the kind of profits generated by the product will paper over a whole lot of guilt about the damage that they have done. Even if now, the widescale negative publicity has gotten to a point where it isn't really productive to keep on pushing out the product (and let's face it - covid was last year's news anyway; who wants to talk about it now), damn - it was a damn fine money spinner! And time to move on to the next one. Because, as the man said, the line on the graph's getting flat and we can't have that!

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This time it appears to have been the other way around Av.

Must say I long since stopped keeping up with the details. Of course, a significant faction of Hamas is probably still invested in the most overwrought Israeli response possible, which as you say, Netenyahu seems bound on producing, so not much surprised if that is indeed the case.

Interested to see that it seems that was indeed the reasoning behind the...delayed...arms shipment, with now further comments officially made that other shipments may be impacted.

Also was (morbidly) amused to discover that the strike which killed the "western" aid workers was in fact carried out by US-supplied munitions.

--A

[peter]

Yes - Biden doesn't seem to think that his 'red lines' have been crossed as yet - he describes the Rafa operations conducted to date as being "On the border" (I think he means territoriality re high population zones, rather than metaphorically in respect of said lines ) - but has nevertheless stated plainly that American bombs and bullets are not going to be used to kill people in Gaza.

A bit late in the day for him to be developing a conscience about where American munitions fetch up, but better late than never I suppose.

On the subject of supplying arms to Israel it was great to see Novara Media's Ash Sarkar eviscerate the odious Labour Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornbury on the BBC's Politics Live show.

The supercilious Thornbury who had previously defended the withholding of food, medicine and water from entering Gaza under the banner of "Israel has the right to defend itself," now found herself before the cameras, saying that Israel had to bow to international demands, especially from its allies, that it not proceed with its intended advance into Rafa.

Sarkar pointed out that this was just so many words in the face of the continuing supply of weaponry and armaments to Israel, which Thornbury's party fully endorsed. She recalled Thornbury's words in support of the said withholdings of food etc, saying it was a collective punishment, and as such in breach of international law.

Thornbury replied that it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do in the early days when the situation was still chaotic, but clearly could only a short term measure that could not be maintained over the longer period.

Sarkar said it was "for the birds" to expect people to swallow this excuse now, that Thornbury had been referring to its use as a temporary measure, in the face of the suffering it had caused. She'd said nothing to that effect at the time. Sarkar said that anybody with any inkling of sense could have predicted where it would lead and that Thornbury was simply attempting to cover her tracks and put herself on the right side of history in the face of what had later transpired. She was,it goes without saying, bang on the mark.

And on the question of judgement, or lack thereof, we come to yesterday's big political event, the theatrical 'crossing of the floor' by Conservative MP Natalie Elphic, to join the ranks of Kier Stamer's Labour.

Stamer appeared with Elphic in front of the cameras later, in an oddly embarrassing moment where he managed simultaneously to look like a dog with two dicks, and appear uncomfortable at the same time.

As well he might!

It says everything one needs to know about Stamer's Labour Party that it would welcome the questionable Natalie Elphic with open arms while at the same time excluding the long serving and loyal Jeremy Corbyn, who even now with all of the opprobrium heaped upon him by Stamer and his cronies, still remains loyal to the Party from which he has been expelled.

Elphic is not even considered to be a particularly left wing tory. She's criticised Stamer repeatedly over his policy in regards to stopping the small boats (she's MP for Dover where of course, the issue is of acute importance). She's been much further to the right than many tory MPs on a range of policies, leading many to wonder at her sudden 'Damascene conversion' to the supposedly Labour philosophy of.......and here my descriptive powers fail me, because what exactly is the ideology of Stamer's Labour Party?

And that's just it, isn't it? The Labour Party is now virtually indistinguishable from the Conservative Party, and so sliding from one side of the House to the other does become entirely possible without too much ideological heavy lifting having to be done to accommodate it.

Which brings us to Elphic and her reasons for doing it.

She's clearly a woman who likes to be front and center of where the action is. And sitting on the backbench of a party in opposition has no appeal to her. I'm not sure she's even staying in politics after the next election, in which case her crossing the floor is a good attention grabbing headline to give the next leg of her career (TV, journalism, talk circuit or boardroom?) a shunt in the right direction. If she's staying in politics, then better to be tacked onto the Labour star as it rises, than clinging to the Tory one as it sets. Either way, it bleeds naked ambition and opportunism from every pore.

And Stamer has soaked it up. The small victory of putting one over on the Tories has completely occluded any perspective he might have had about just who he is letting into the party. Because Elphic is tarnished. It's not her fault that her husband, the previous MP for Dover, was imprisoned for sexual attacks made on two women. It might even be to her credit that she remained loyal to him right up to the point of his guilty verdict and sentencing. But at this point she certainly cut him loose and began to forge her own path. And it didn't go down well that she seemed to be condoning her husband's behaviour by saying that he was, as an attractive, powerful, rich man who was in turn attracted to women, and as such vulnerable to the advances of predatory women.

I can't comment on that, but I'm damn sure it was not a very clever thing say when two women have been sexualy assaulted in the judgement of the Court.

And Stamer, the knuckle-head, has just dived head first into it!

Predictably, the reaction of Labour MPs has been furious. "What on earth is he doing?" is the general consensus. Ex Labour leader Sir Neil Kinnock has said that Stamer needs to be more careful about who he chooses to open up the Labour Party to. "I know we're a broad church," he said, "But....." Elsewhere the reaction has been confusion. "Why would he do this?" He apparently did not consult with either his shadow chief whip or his shadow Chancellor (Rachel Reeves apparently once told Elphic to "Fuck off!" for criticising footballer Marcus Rashford) and neither are best pleased. There are those who see the defection as a coup, are prepared to hold their noses in return for the perceived political benefit, but they seem to be in the minority.

I am of the former group. Acceptance of such an overt display of self interest purely to gain a few political points seems a poor price to pay in my book. It's telegraphing that you don't really have any political compass, or indeed much in the way of rectitude, if you are prepared to accept just about anyone simply because they have been a Conservative MP. Suella Braverman perhaps? She's looking for a job I imagine? Or Farage? He's looking for an inroad into Westminster I believe.

So yes, back to the original question - that of judgement.....and it appears that Stamer doesn't have any. Which doesn't bode well for the man who is likely going to be steering the ship over the next critical years in our national history. Years in which complex decisions will decide whether we pull ourselves back up from our knees, and begin repairing our post Brexit, post pandemic, post Ukraine, post cost of living, fortunes......or whether we continue our descent and ultimately go down the tubes forever.

[peter]

They say that you're closer to God in a garden than anywhere else.

Well it certainly rang true for me as I laboured in mine yesterday in the near summer temperatures that we have been enjoying for a day or two in Cornwall. Taking the more intended meaning, I note that there is no mention of actually working in the damn things, and I suspect that the original composer of the sentiment (Dorothy Frances Gurney?) had little experience of doing so. Talk about Gurney - I was damn close to being wheeled out on one after half an hour labouring with spade and shears in my half-sixpence affair ('a wilderness and a place of solitude', some have unkindly described it).

But that isn't why I'm here today; I have a different topic in mind - that of self censorship and how it effects our discourse.

Often and often I find myself, in composing posts for this place, either scrubbing entire posts or altering them substantially before hitting the submit button. In my talking to people as well, I'm careful to not say things that I know in this day and age, seem to go against the grain of current thinking. I don't know, but I suspect I'm not alone in this and I'm interested in how such a state of affairs has come about and what are it's consequences.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a closet xenophobe or hater of gays. I don't question the rights of all people to live as they choose (within certain pretty liberal parameters) or feel a stab of fear or resentment at the sight of a coloured face walking down the street towards me. But still I find myself, even in my broad acceptance of everything the 'new world' of my later adult life has brought, occasionally questioning things in a manner that, if expressed, has to be done in a kid-gloves manner, for fear that someone's nose will be put out of kilter if the subject is broached in too head on a fashion.

What subjects are the ones in which I feel these limitations on my complete freedom of expression most acutely. Certainly on the subject of Israel. I know that I express criticism of what they are up to in no uncertain terms on these pages - I'd feel less than loyal to humanity in general if I didn't - but I'm acutely aware that criticism of Israel is these days is taken as evidence of being antisemitic in itself. Same goes for the gay issue. Or the trans one as well (not to lump the two things together as being one and the same thing). (Incidentally, I once worked with a gay guy who was pretty anti trans in his thinking - certainly more so than would have been acceptable for me to express had I been of that turn of thought - proof enough that not all gays are of a step with the full on inclusion thing, even if our media seems to present the issue as a big united whole (LGBTQ+ and all of that.) Racism I suppose, for want of a better word. That's another area where great care has to be exercised when expressing any kind of opinion. You are always treading on eggshells whenever you comment on anything in this area. Womens issues can be a bit dodgy as well. Easy to be labelled sexist by the slightest piddling comment you might make in this area (such as I never yet met a woman so feminist in her thinking that she refused to let me pay the bill in a restaurant). Old, white guys; you can say whatever the fuck you want about those cunts. (And the ugly of course: they remain fair game.)

See that? I expressed a really savage insult on old white men, and it didn't even cause the slightest ripple in your pc-radar (other than the slight quiver at the C word - and that only because it refers to a part of the female anatomy and thus seems to stray into the realms of woman hatred. Say I'd used the word 'pricks' instead? Get my point?

So it's the politics of Israel, gay issues, trans issues, women, racism, and anything to do with disability.

Well that's fine. All these are groups or things where people have historically had a raw deal of some kind or another. My generation and its antecedents has much to answer for on this score and the overturning of prejudice and injustice is always to be commended. But at the expense of freedom of expression? Yes! Even at that cost. But it's all identity stuff really. It's all focused on the things that separate us rather than that by which we are united under the collective banner of humanity.

You have to have responsibility in your use of the freedoms of expression that you are granted, but at what point does this self censoring become damaging to a full and complete understanding of what we collectively believe, of what we collectively feel? Because it is surely in this collective expression of our inner thinking, that a consensus for what is the norm is reached? If everyone is self censoring because they are held in thrall by a culturally imposed set of constraints that issue out of a small set of 'cultural deciders', movers and shakers within the media, the polity.....'educated society', then at what point can these norms take shape in the proper organic fashion?

You don't want to go around saying hurtful things for sure, but neither is the act of self censorship without its costs, when considered on a societal scale.

Think on this when you practice it.

[peter]

Thanks to Michael Lambert for explaining the difference between a recession proper and the 'technical' recession, which the media is at pains to tell us isn't quite as bad as a true recession, but from which we have nevertheless been suffering and from which we are thankfully emerging.

A full recession is defined in economics as (and you'll know this) a period of two or more succesive quaters where the economy experiences negative growth. A technical recession on the other hand is a period of two or more successive quaters where the economy experiences negative growth. Thanks Michael, for clearing that one up, and it's good news that we've escaped the real thing by only experiencing two successive quaters of negative growth. For a moment there I thought we were in a recession.

But anyway, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt was on television yesterday telling us that it's all okay now. Thanks to his policies we are out of the woods, the corner has been turned, and it's blue skies, nothing but blue skies, from now on. It's a shame that the effects of inflation have bitten so deep into people's spending power that they have nothing left to spend, even though the straight road stretches ahead of them, lined with goods, services and produce that they can look at, admire and dream of, but never afford.

It's a shame that the only food joints in town doing a roaring trade are the food-banks where the millions who've reached the ends of their means are forced to go, in order to put food in front of their families. Or that the only holidays that many will enjoy are the nine pound fifty breaks in the Sun newspaper, where they get 3 nights in a bluebottle infested caravan on Foul Johners Holiday Park, ten miles up the depressing road from where they live. The grey clubhouses in them come with ready to use nooses in the toilets, in case the pervasive atmosphere of desperation and grimy degradation in the bar room get to much for you.

It's a shame that the roads are so full of potholes that the teeth of the dying are all but shaken out of their heads as they make their final journey into oblivion or the local hospital (whichever comes first), lucky at last to have jumped the 7 million queue and be gotten into hospital just before they actually croaked (because that would be embarrassing wouldn't it). No, that two years of waiting, those miseed appointments and the scanty treatments, paired down to the bone have had nothing to do with this, have they?

Because we're doing great. Everything is looking just fine and dandy for us as a nation. We've never, in the old phrase, had it so good.

So remember that come polling day, when you have to choose where to put your X. You wouldn't want Labour to come along and mess everything up now, would you?

-----0-----

Let's just give the following as it appears on the BBC News website, and let it speak for itself.

'Extreme' protest groups face ban under proposal

Protest groups such as Just Stop Oil and Palestine Action could face banning in a similar way to terrorist organisations, under a proposal from the government's advisor on political violence.

An upcoming report from Lord Walney, which BBC News has seen extracts of, will recommend a new category for proscribing "extreme protest groups".

It defines those as groups who routinely use criminal tactics to try to achieve their goals.

The restrictions would affect a group's ability to fundraise and organise gatherings in the UK.

A government source said that ministers would be considering the recommendations. [.....]

[The] government source said that ministers shared Lord Walney's objectives and would consider implementing his recommendations once the review was published.

Nothing needs to be added to this, other than the fact that no doubt this will be another of the government's bits of legislation or plans that Labour "simply won't have the time" (to use David Lammy's excuse re the two child limit on benefits) to overturn.

-----0-----

Other Sunday stuff.

Obligatory picture of climate activist Greta Thunberg being led away by police from the Pro-Palestinian demonstration outside the Eurovision Song Contest venue in Sweden. Can't see the point myself, of booing an Israeli lass who has nothing to do with what is going on in Gaza, and who is just representing her country in the annual glam-fest which is Eurovision, but no doubt Greta has her reasons and it keeps her in the media I suppose. It's a wonder she's ever outside a police cell these days, the number of times she's arrested.

If she carries on like this, she runs the risk of being proscribed in the UK.

[Avatar]

But that isn't why I'm here today; I have a different topic in mind - that of self censorship and how it effects our discourse.

Hmmm, differing perspectives. I think of it as knowing one's audience rather than censoring oneself.

I have long been of the opinion that it is possible to say almost anything, as long as one phrases it correctly. And "correctly" includes taking into account the perception of those words by your audience, their potential impact, their potential consequences.

In order to achieve the outcome one seeks, it is necessary to use the words that will guide things toward that outcome. Is that censorship? Manipulation? Effective communication?

Nothing happens in a vacuum, and every action etc. etc. etc. It costs me nothing to be mindful of how what I say may affect the person I'm saying it to. (Well, a little mental effort perhaps.)

Of course, one can say whatever one wants, but that comes with the proviso that one must accept the consequences.

Censorship reads more as an external, imposed stricture that forbids something.

(Oh, on an earlier topic, it seems the sticking point in the latest attempted agreement was Israel wanting a time frame by which hostilities would resume, whereas Hamas wanted an agreement on a permanent cessation.)

--A