What Do You Think Today?

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Yesterday it was smug Angela Rayner, talking to the BBC before her conference speech, that was pursuing the 'nothing to see here' line - this despite revelations in the Sunday press that she'd accepted a freebie holiday in a swish New York apartment (from this same donor who's been splashing the cash on the PM, his wife and multiple other Labour bigwigs) over the Christmas and New Year period.

Rayner's take was that this guy was a friend of hers (yeah right - billionaires hang about with UK politicians just because they like them....I get it) - but funnily enough, not friend enough that he was actually at the apartment for the holiday himself. This honour was taken by another Labour MP who Rayner didn't see fit to declare, although she did declare the holiday gift itself, in what she claimed was a not actually required attempt at over transparency.

Yeah - okay. She declared it.....but this is like politicians can take whatever freebies they like from whoever they like as long as it's declared, and this makes it okay. The ethical dimension doesn't seem to come in. Legal it might be, but does it pass the smell-test; does it f***.

It doesn't seem to cross these people's minds that the public who vote for them are just fed up with this. We've had 16 years of it, and now Labour are rubbing our noses in it just the same as the lot who've just been kicked out. Snouts in the trough.

And it isn't going to change. It will be exactly what it is now, tomorrow and the day after, until the cows come home. The system is rotten to the core and all of the faux antisemitism charges in the world are not going to paper over the fact that we'd have been a million times better off had Jeremy Corbyn been allowed to get in and change it.

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And as if on queue, I turn to the papers and the Times has a font page leader to an inside article that reads "Brace yourself for Corbyn's revenge."

Well I don't know about that. Corbyn is pulling together the independent MPs in parliament, no doubt about that, but he isn't going to bring down the Labour government any time soon. The half dozen independents are a voice, they have a platform, and anything Corbyn says in the House will be reported (just to fuck off Kier Stamer, if for no other reason), but it isn't going to change anything. The system isn't going to change from within Westminster. Not any more. Unless the people can be motivated to move en masse to demand of the polity that they clean up their act, nothing is going to happen. Mass lobbying of MPs. Grass roots meetings to develop movements of proletariat (in a non-Marxian sense) unionism in defence of their interests. Sounds very 19th century but we are seriously back to that. It's ridiculous.

And all the while it isn't even the most pressing of our problems. Political chicanery and corruption is ubiquitous and endemic, but populations can survive them as long as it doesn't get simultaneously repressive. But nuclear weapons landing on your cities in numbers, and things start to look different.

And just to make sure we got the message of Putin's warning should we start lobbing long range missiles into Russia, the (effective) speaker of the Russian parliament had these words to say (and I'm going to dissapear for a minute to get the exact quote.....)

Here we are; these are the words of Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower house of parliament in Moscow and member of the security council.

For those who didn't get it the first time (referring to Putin's warning), what the European parliament is calling for, leads to a world war using nuclear weapons.

Now not being funny, but how much frikkin' clearer can you get than that?

It's absolutely unbelievable that we have a Foreign Secretary who doesn't believe that we should worry about such words coming out of Russia, that he has no belief that they have substance. Or that neither the heads of MI6 or the CIA do either - because other people high up the chain of command clearly do. Because it was during the plane flight that Kier Stamer made to Washington, and prior to which Blinken and Lammy had suggested that an approval would be given for said missiles to be fired into Russia by Ukraine, that apparently a volta face was made by Biden's team (upon very serious warnings from the Pentagon that Russia was not bluffing on this) and the President (on Stamer's arrival) made it angrily clear that no such approval would be forthcoming.

Once again, we find ourselves only a few fucking idiots away from nuclear armageddon. And now Israel is stirring itself into the mix. It's absolutely determined that its war against Hamas is going to go regional, and this from the mouth of the Palestinian ambassador to the UK in interview with Trevor Phillips on Sky TV yesterday. He said that the people of the region were in no doubt that Netenyahu was determined that no deescalation would be allowed in its moves to increase the range of the conflict. They were, he said, sad and disappointed that this was so, but hopeful that ultimately a combination of their own resilience together with international solidarity would bring about the desired result in their favour.

He'd listened, he said, to Phillips' prior interview with the Israeli President, and had been amazed to hear the man (not normally a supporter of the Netenyahu administration) spouting the right wing rhetoric that he'd formerly eschewed. These people said the ambassador, clearly believed that security for Israel could be achieved by means other than a negotiated settlement in which the Palestinians were given their rightful autonomy with a recognised state of their own. That such security could be achieved by the ongoing and permanent suppression of the Palestinian people, with all of the prejudices and injustices it entailed. It was ridiculous he said, and he was right.

Monday, bloody Monday (play on the U2 song title - missiles....Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Lebanon......geddit? )

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A 'city of two tales' would be one way of putting it, though that would perhaps be stretching things since Beirut is quite a bit beyond the region of the most intense exchanges going on between Israel and and Hezbollah, where the former borders Lebanon.

Today's news reads of the intense shelling of multiple targets inside Lebanon, upwards of 350 people killed and 12,000 injured, and Hezbollah having had a terrible blow dealt it in a series of days in which it has effectively lost its ability to communicate, seen its top officialdom killed, and lost multiple strategically important sites where its forces are gathered. Of lesser prominence in the reports are the ongoing missile attacks that are being made deeper into Israel than has hitherto been the case, and absent is the fact that Netenyahu has extended the emergency laws allowing the IDF to order evacuation and emergency measures from just the north of the country to its totality - an indication of just how much risk Israel is taking in its escalation of the hostilities it is engaged in with Hezbollah.

On the other side,if you dig a little deeper, step out into the more obscure outlets of news and discussion, exists another story.

In this one, the pager and walkie talkie attacks over the weekend, rather than striking deep into the Hezbollah military communication ability, hit rather that civilian infrastructure role which the grouping is responsible for - think civil police, administrative workers and service providers - leaving the military capabilities of the organisation largely untouched. Certainly the pictures we have seen on various television channels that have been present in the region would tend to back up the story that it was non military targets that bore the brunt of the attacks, but then in fairness they'd not be allowed to see military hits of any kind even if they had occurred.

In respect of the story of its command structure having been 'taken out', this may be so, but as I heard one commentator arguing - a man who'd had extensive dealings with Hezbollah in an official capacity for the UK diplomatic service - it is in the very nature of organisations such as Hezbollah that they are prepared at all times to deal with such losses. It was standard practice said the commentator, for all military personnel to train and prepare their replacements, who would be ready at a moments notice to step up to fill any losses. This would pertain right up to and including the senior command. More to the point, the understanding of the fighting units of such quasi official forces, was that in the event of communication breakdowns, the fight always continues. Ideologically driven, they don't just down arms and drift away like regular soldiery when their command structure is lost or disrupted.

And finally Alistair Crooke (the commentator I'm referring to) said of the Hezbollah missile and armament facilities, that they are so deeply buried underground and hidden that the likelihood of any Israeli missile attacks having done more than superficial damage to them was low. Crooke had clearly been impressed by the professional nature of Hezbollah operations in his dealings with them and seemed confident in his appraisal that they would not be so easily swept aside as was being presented by our media. His feelings were that Israel was attempting this escalatory push against Hezbollah in order to secure its northern border. If the government in Beirut could be forced to sign a peace arrangement or ceasefire arrangement between Israel and itself, then the pressure would be taken off the IDF in the north, freeing them to pursue their activities in Gaza and the West Bank. In addition a circumstance where the displaced people of northern Israel could return to their homes would take considerable pressure off him, by allowing him to fulfil his promise to them that they would be able do so.

The game is afoot and it's a very risky one, both for Israel and the whole Middle East (never a stable region since even its earliest days post World War I).

Arthur Balfour has much to answer for as the British Foreign Secretary who effectively started all of this, but in one statement he was correct - and that correctness rings especially true today. He said, "There are plenty of cases of war being begun before it is declared." Look at today's papers and tell me that this isn't war. As for our politicians still piping on about not escalating the situation - look at it! What don't you get? It's too late! It's escalated into war already! Netenyahu has held a torch to the tinderbox that has pertained in the Middle East for the last century and it's about to go up. It might be possible to prevent it - but not by any of the means by which our current leaderships are pursuing, which are just feeding the flames.

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Interesting little article on the BBC's news website in which it reports that NHS chiefs are less than happy about the messaging that is being put out pertaining to the service, saying it is damaging staff morale and threatening to put people off from coming forward for treatment in a timely manner when they need to.

The particular phrasing that is currently being employed by the new government - the repeated claim by ministers, Wes Streeting in particular, that the health service is "broken" - is coming under particular attention, not to mention the use of the term 'death sentence' to refer to an NHS cancer diagnosis made in this country (such is the reported poor performance of our service in comparison to its equivalent services in other developed countries).

Service chiefs say they understand the need to make the public aware of the problems within the service, but they feel that the rhetoric being used has perhaps gone too far and might be becoming counterproductive.

I think they dissemble. This has nothing to do with making the public aware of the need to increase financing within the service (which has been chronically underfunded for decades in an absolutely deliberate policy of degrading its operational capacity), and everything to do with 'softening up' the general public to accept the ongoing introduction of private financing into service (with the ultimate goal of seeing it 'Americanised' into a fully privately funded service).

What Wes Streeting is doing, is simply carrying on where the Conservatives left off. With media collusion, they continue apace to propagate the idea that the service isn't fit for purpose and must be reorganised to face the demands of an aging population if it is to survive.

It's bullshit. The service simply needs proper funding and to be left alone for those who know best how to organise the service to get the best from it to do their jobs. The job of a Labour government is not to facilitate the avaricious intentions of business to avail itself of the huge potential profits of taking control of people's health, but rather to stand as a bulwark against such plans, by providing the necessary funding for the service to reverse the damage that decades of deliberate underfunding have caused. Before he was tempted away by the pots of gold that promotion of private finance initiatives could bring (he reportedly made 12 million pounds promoting them within a year of leaving office), Tony Blair proved that the performance of the NHS was a simple equation in which the more money that was put into it, the better it performed. The NHS was functioning better than at any time in its history following the period of Labour's administration in the late nineties and early 2000's. But it's always been anathema to both the Tories (who don't believe that government should have any remit or responsibility for people's health as a matter of pure ideology) and business, who understand that there is no easier way to part people from their money than when they are sick. That the NHS stands in the way of their getting their hands on this fountain of gold is simply unacceptable to them, and they have viewed a state provided health service as a mortal enemy that must be destroyed from day one of its emergence.

And 'Changed Labour' is simply continuing on with this work. Streeting and his ilk have no interest in the effects of their words in terms of morale on the staff or public confidence in coming forward for treatment, only that they pave the way for increasing private involvement in the service. They have none of the pride and love for the NHS that has been a tradition in this country since the inception of the service. They work only to undermine this positive viewing by chip, chip chipping away at it - using negative phraseology to describe it at every opportunity in order to do their work. Shame on them and shame on the media for allowing it.

And I guarantee that the BBC article will get no further coverage than it has got, stuck away unnoticed and uninterested in, on the arse-end of their website.

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And lastly, just to mention the Kier Stamer Freudian slip made during his debut conference speech as Prime Minister yesterday.

Referring to the situation in Gaza he called for an immediate ceasefire and the "return of the sausages" - which left his audience somewhat bemused and not a little entertained. Some were indeed grinning like wolves.

No wonder he gave up the courtroom for the safer role as administrator of the Public Prosecution Service if that is the limit of his powers of concentration. I mean, it's not like anyone was going to notice was it.......

Perhaps he'd been looking at Lady Stamer in her (no doubt borrowed or gifted) fetching dress and, red rag to a bull like, had been momentarily distracted by an idea for a new nighttime game for the Stamer boudoir? "C'mere you! Time for a round of Return of the Sausage you minx!"?

Well - maybe not...... But I did like that 'red rag to a bull' line. Her dress you see - it was red. And clothes: rags, you know. The rag-trade and all that.


Gawd! I don't know why I bother!

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In a telling report from the Ukrainian front line yesterday, Sky News reporters went out to the eastern front to shadow a team of medical corps workers as they collected wounded Ukrainian soldiers to bring them back to safer regions for treatment.

The wounded soldiers were delivered at night time by their comrades from the back of military transport vehicles, and to a man they were old broken down individuals who looked closer to retirement age than fit for participation in a gruelling war of attrition.

They spoke of fighting a loosing battle from which it was lucky that any of them had survived. They were clearly depressed and worn out, men who should never have been anywhere near a front line, but who instead were being put to battle against a superior enemy, better supplied and fitter for service, without any hope of relief or reinforcement. It was tragic to see them and the embedded reporter conceded that manpower limitations and inability to relieve the soldiers were having a clearly detrimental effect on these men and the war effort in general.

I have seen a number of highly knowledgeable commentators (kept absolutely away from any mainstream media outlets) who have said that this war is lost. That Ukraine is "bleeding out" and only being kept going on "life support'' for the purposes of not putting the Democratic administration in a difficult situation prior to the American election (the Democrats having been the main cheerleaders that have seen hundreds of billions of American dollars thrown at this pointless and avoidable war). What I saw yesterday was a telling scenario that supported these commentators in their contention in chilling manner.

Meanwhile President Zelensky was at the United Nations, speaking before the General Assembly, and giving a highly spun mishmash of half truths and dissembled facts about the causes and conditions of the war. He accused Russia of being expansionist, as though that had been the reason behind the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He neglected to say that the Russians agreed a deal that would have seen them retreat to their post invasion borders, but that Boris Johnson and Joe Biden had forbidden him from agreeing to it. Thus could this entire debacle have been avoided. Instead he fell back on the propoganda trope of an expansionist Russia grabbing at ever more and more territory - a claim for which there is not a shred of supportive evidence to back up.

He said that Ukraine wanted peace more than anyone else, but fell back on spin and half truths given without context, rather than engaging in plain truth telling and honesty. I do believe that he wants peace - it is his puppet-masters in Washington that are not yet prepared to see it. Until some honesty is advanced into the debate he will not get his wish and those poor old soldiers on the eastern front will keep on dying.

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In possibly the most egregious understatement of the year to date, Chief Medical Advisor to the government Professor Sir Chris Whitty has said that the risk of Covid-19 might have been overstated to the British public.

Speaking from amid the smoking ruins of our country (another 50 year old family business - a farm based theme park in my county closed yesterday citing covid lock down and the cost of living catastrophe as responsible) the man said that getting the balance right in terms of raising public awareness and overegging the cake was "really hard".

I must say, it didn't look too hard when you were standing on that podium speaking of deaths in the hundreds of thousands, when the adverts about "killing grannie" were going out.

The cumulative cost of covid, the actual and collateral damage caused by locking down the inhabitants of this country, the stopping of the juggernaut which is the economy in its tracks, is incalculable. Cancer and cardiovascular related deaths are God knows how much higher. Mental illness is through the roof. A whole generation of kids is reduced to virtually scrap heap material by virtue of a complete cessation of their schooling while locked in their homes. Businesses in their hundreds of thousands have gone to the wall and the coffers of the treasury are empty while 600 billion pounds of the country's money now lies in the offshore accounts of private companies and individuals, people who just happened to be in the right place at the right time when Rishi Sunak decided to give them all money for doing nothing.

Overstated? The man should be in prison, not receiving knighthoods and plaudits for his large role in taking a wrecking-ball to the future of this country. Him and all of the other ones who oversaw that collective madness which ran riot through the scientific and administrative community, aided and abeted by the propoganda machine into which the media morphed, and from which it has never changed back.

It is an indisputable fact that this country will never recover from Covid-19. Or rather, from the disproportionate (though this is simply too small a word to cover it) attempts to control what was at worst, a virus of minimal threat to a tiny proportion of the oldest members of society. The injustices that were levelled upon people, the intrusions into their right to decide what medical interventions they wanted to agree to, the ongoing consequences of those rushed through experimental therapies.....God - the list is endless, and the man describes it as "overstated".

Allow me a moment to weep for my country, its people, the crime that has been perpetrated against them. And let me never......never.....hear the name Whitty again!

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In a not in the slightest unexpected volta face on the issue of lifting the tax exemption of non-doms in this country, Chancellor Reeves is reportedly considering softening the changes to the tax status of these individuals, on the basis that to make the changes as they had been proposed, might actually cost the exchequer more money that it earned.

It certainly sounded good in the election campaign - clobber those tax avoiding rich bastards who claimed not to be really living in this country, but in reality of course were, for the money they should be paying. The issue had recieved maximum publicity when it transpired that the wife of the frikkin' Prime Minister (Sunak at the time) was enjoying this status and avoiding paying any tax on the income of her near a billion pounds fortune (estimated at twenty million pounds a year at that time - nearer 50 now). Prior to this, the majority of people would never have heard of a non-dom, let alone understand the financial advantages of actually being designated as one. But now thanks to Sunak everyone knows what they are and people are understandably pissed to see the richest once again simply bypassing the demands which are made on the rest of us.

So it was a great soundbite for Labour to push in its election campaign, that they'd put an end to it. But now it suddenly appears that it might not be so clever. There has reportedly been a mass exodus of said wealthy individuals, escaping the country prior to being clobbered for the tax they would suddenly become liable for, and this in return also removes the tax that they would have paid had they stayed, from the picture. And this it seems, could actually overbalance the amount that would be drawn in by the new taxation regime that would be applied to that small number that decided to stay.

This is the theory anyway, and its being taken sufficiently seriously by the treasury that this showstopper of a policy is being considered for significant softening before any changes are made.

It all sounds very reasonable doesn't it? The government, taking stock of new information at its disposal and adjusting its decisions in the light of that information. But remember - those wealthy individuals still get to keep their money and we still get to pay the tax! Suddenly you begin to wonder; are we being spun a line here? Were those stories of non-doms deserting the country in droves (they are reported as being highly mobile buggers even before the proposed tax changes anyway) just the softening up of the public by a client media (with the interests of these wealthy individuals at heart) prior to this sudden apparent reversal of policy? Is what we are actually seeing, just another example of the fact that what has been sold to us as a Labour Party, is in fact just a Tory Party dressed in sheep's clothes? That clobbering the non-doms for their unpaid taxes was just a good electoral pledge that was never intended to be seen through to the point where the exchequer tills started ringing? It's beginning to look suspiciously like that might be the day, and all this treasury rationalisation might just be no more than smoke and mirrors.

I however tend towards a more simple position. As far as I'm concerned, if you don't want to pay your taxes and support the country like everyone else, then fuck off and live somewhere else. You might want to keep more and more of your already excessive wealth for yourself, but go do it somewhere else. Like in the luxury prison that is Monaco. Or in the Cayman islands where you can sit and look at your money all day, but you can't enjoy the benefits of living in a first world country for free. My guess is that most of the people who run for the hills will pretty soon be deciding that paying their taxes was a pretty small price to pay for the benefits of being free to move around in a developed country like this, and would be queueing up to return. And if not then fuck 'em. We'll do without them.

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The current Israeli action in Lebanon is almost a strike by strike replay of the 1982 war, in which the aim on that occasion was the complete removal of the PLO from the country.

For a twelve week period the Israeli forces first battered the country with missiles and bombs, before launching a ground invasion with regular and reservist troops, in which the south of the country up to and including the capital Beirut was occupied.

The PLO had become firmly established in the south, supported by the largely Shia population of that area, but had recently outstayed its welcome by its heavy handed attitude towards the Lebanese population in the region. Like Hezbollah today, it carried out frequent missile and rocket attacks on Israel and was a constant thorn in the side of the Jewish state to its south.

Reading an account of the conflict is almost like reading a blow by blow account of what is transpiring today. The tactics used by Israel are seemingly following the same pattern, not least probably because the aim of removal of the PLO was indeed achieved, even if the action cannot be judged a success from other perspectives that might be taken.

The air bombardment was strikingly similar: it was extensive and ongoing, and always (claimed) to be directed at taking out PLO leadership figures and strongholds, even though huge amount of civilian infrastructure seemed to be being destroyed. The truth was that by a policy of punishment of the Lebanese population, it was hoped that they could be induced to turn against the PLO presence in their country and blame it for their suffering. It worked. The Lebanese forces took up the fight against the PLO and they were indeed forced to negotiate a passage out of the country, which resulted in their being the dispersed as a force across several Arab recipient states. From this point onward external activity in support of Palestinian demands was effectively ended, and it was only the grassroots uprising of the intifadas that kept the idea of a Palestinian state alive. (Ironically, in this sense the Israeli offensive into Lebanon can be construed as a failure, since while the PLO were indeed dispersed and to a degree neutered, the damage to the Israeli reputation by the brutality of the war and the subsequent Shatila and Shabron massacres was significant (in terms of Western perception of the Israeli cause) and contrary to the cessation of the idea of a Palestinian state that the Israelis desired, the emphasis merely sprang up within 'Israel' itself in the occupied territories.)

But back to today, if Israel does indeed intend to drive Hezbollah out of Lebanon in the same way as it did the PLO in 1982, then we can expect a ground invasion (as is being threatened) to occur in due course. It might be that the Lebanese authorities can demand a reining in of Hezbollah activity (ie stop them firing missiles and rockets across into northern Israel) allowing the Israeli's to return to their homes in the north. This would negate the need for Israel to mount a ground invasion, but while this might bring a temporary period of peace with a buffer zone in placement, it wouldn't be the complete destruction of Hezbollah that Israel would crave for. It should be noted that Hezbollah is not a Palestinian based organisation, but an Iranian sponsored one that came into being in support of the Shia population of southern Lebanon following the removal of the PLO. Their activities in support of the people of Gaza is more about striking at Israel while the country is engaged in activity elsewhere - a convenient justification if you like, of what they would want to do anyway. That Israel is palpably engaged in unacceptable activity in Gaza (call it what you will) is simply to lend a veneer of justification to their activity against Israel in the north. They can claim to be firing rockets into Israel in support of the Palestinians in gaza, and indeed they probably are, but this is secondary to their simple desire to be striking at Israel anyway. The optics of their activities are given a positive boost by the negative optics of what Israel is doing in Gaza (if you get me. I don't know if I'm explaining this very well).

Israel would probably rather not go physically into Lebanon - it hasn't ended well for them in the past - but if they do so, it will certainly only be with the agreement of the USA. The latter may not go in alongside them (boots on the ground style of thing), but they'll have to be involved in at least agreeing to it if nothing else. On a previous incursion into Lebanon (in the sixties I believe) in which American approval was not obtained beforehand, the Israeli forces were forced to make an ignominious withdrawal shortly after entering the country. They will not make the same mistake again. For all of the public calls of the US for a deescalation, a ceasefire or whatever, you can be absolutely sure that they will be being kept abreast of everything that Israel has planned to do - of their predictions of how the offensive will pan out and how long it will take. They will be granting Israel all the support that they can, up to and including air cover, short of boots on the ground. Netenyahu for his part will be hoping for escalation to the point at which Iran are drawn in in support of Lebanon, at which point America will have no choice but to enter the fray proper. This becomes the larger endgame of which the Palestinian quests but a small (and rather insignificant, it has to be said) part (though God knows, not to them). A Middle East without Iran, composed of client Arab states all dancing to the American tune. A consumation (as Shakespeare would put it) devoutly to be wished. The Palestinian cause would have no serious backer, Israel would be secure within its borders and all would be well, all would be well, and all manner of things would be well. But as the poet would have it, the best laid plans of mice and men do oft go astray (or 'gang awry' more properly, but remember, I'm dealing with philistines here ).

(Edit: On the point of drawing Iran into the conflict, this was of course the reason behind yesterday's huge strikes in Beirut, in which Israel claimed to be targeting Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah chief and close Iranian confidante. Benjamin Netenyahu had also warned Iran from his podium before the United Nations, that there was nowhere that Iran was safe from the "long arm of Israel", should it choose to strike. As I say, getting Iran into the conflict is seen as essential if a) Netenyahu is to deliver himself from the political straits he finds himself in at home and b) securing long term security for Israel in the region and moving ever closer to the Zionist goal of the creation of a Greater Israel, of which Netenyahu is an ardent proponent.)

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Yesterday, I watched a YouTube posting in which ex BBC presenter and historian Neil Oliver compared Kier Stamer and his 'clothesgate' scandal to the scene from Orwell's Animal Farm, in which it is revealed that while the regular farm animals are undergoing hardship and privation, their leaders are enjoying "apples and milk" which are denied to them.

Sent out to the confused and angry animals to explain this vexing revelation, head pig Napoleon's sidekick Snowball, himself somewhat conflicted by the behaviour of his fellow leaders since kicking out their repressive human overlords, tells them that it isn't for their own benefit that the leadership are enjoying luxurious living whilst they, the ordinary animals are undergoing hardship, but rather, it is so for the benefit of the masses themselves. It can't be expected, Snowball says, that the thinkers should be put at risk by not enjoying a rich and varied diet - why science itself has shown that this is necessary for the brain to function properly to its maximum potential.

Oliver compared this to the excuse that has been put forward that our leaders must accept these donations in order to maintain 'face' on the world stage - that if they appear wearing 'ordinary' clothing, say suits from M&S rather than from Saville Row tailors, that they will be somehow 'letting the side down'. This was the reason put forward by David Lammy, the Snowball figure wheeled out last Sunday to make the leaderships excuses. A man himself entirely comfortable with the practice of receiving gifts, and without a shred of the misgivings of the said Snowball, who added that in America the state itself provided a budget for the president's wardrobe. This latter argument entirely fails to understand the difference between the role of the president as Head of State (the American equivalent of our monarchy if you like, who also get a state provision for their expenses) and a political leadership who function in an entirely different role. But the long and short of it was that it was for us that Stamer and crew were availing themselves of all these freebies. Like Napoleon and his ilk, it was a sacrifice that they had to make for our benefit.

"What don't they get," asked Oliver? Do they not understand that a bit of basic humility in the face of telling everyone that they must buckle up and take their share of the burden of setting this country to rights, would be appropriate? Can we not, he asked, find a single politician anywhere, that is prepared not to dive head first into the trough at the first opportunity? It simply showed, he said, the basic facts that these guys simply don't care - for all their slick words they hold the rest of us in contempt and in reality want nothing to do with us. At least with the Tories they didn't bother to hide this from us, that they would be stuffing their pockets with gold while the rest us struggled to stay afloat. But Labour? Labour were supposed to be the party of the people: drawn from their ranks to represent them, to be like them.

Well I could have told Oliver of a politician who was an exemplar of what he seemed to be describing, the man he seemed to want. His name was Jeremy Corbyn, and when he came within a shout of power the movers and shakers conspired to bring him down. But that's another story and one I've told often.

But today I'm gratified to read that Labour MP Rosie Duffield has resigned her whip from the Party and joined the ranks of the independents. She has done so in shame at the egregious behaviour of the leadership, the "sleaze, nepotism and avarice" she has witnessed, which has convinced her that in the face of the hardships being handed out to all and sundry in the rest of the population, she cannot in all conscience remain in the Party. Duffield said she was "ashamed" of what Stamer and his inner circle have done to tarnish the reputation of the "once proud Party."

More power to her elbow. This is exactly what we need to bring back some semblance of honour into our politics. MPs who are prepared to call out the truth of what we can all see. I'm hopeful that this morning large numbers of Labour MPs will be reading this on the front pages of our newspapers and thinking, "why not me?" I absolutely get that a lot of them are new entrants to parliament - they don't want to scupper their chances of a career in politics by casting themselves into the wilderness at this early stage of their chosen path. But the truth is that if they are possessed of a social conscious, they will not be able to stomach what will be asked of them again and again in the coming months, as Stamer beds himself into office and demands more and more of the same. You simply cannot reconcile his approach with the history of the party he leads - they areincompatible. So if you are in the party because of that history, then frankly you'd just as soon be away into the ranks of the independents where a warm welcome will await you, sooner rather than later. Things are changing, have changed in UK politics, and new forces are arising. Discombobulated Labour MPs should not be afraid to be in the vanguard of those changes, and should not be afraid to follow the example of Duffield and throw in the whip. Their constituents will be just as disgusted with the party that they have elected as the MPs themselves are uncomfortable, and will be forgiving of any action to demonstrate this. What they will not forgive is an MP who sells their political soul for Stamer's 30 pieces of silver, and joins in with the pigs in enjoyment of milk and apples whilst the rest of us go hungry.

[Avatar]

LOL, I've clearly missed this one...politicians being politicians again?

--A

[peter]

You have no idea Av!

It's been ongoing for a while and has totally overshadowed the Labour Party annual conference. Stamer and crew have been feathering their nests for all their worth while telling the rest of us that we've got to take up the burden of setting the broken country to rights. Undoubtedly the right wing press have been fuelling the controversy for all they are worth, but it has only gained traction with the British public because they can see the truth of it. The egregious nature of the leaderships's behaviour when they ate literally clobbering both the young (via the two child benefits cap) and the old (the ending of the winter fuel allowance for pensioners excepting those on means tested benefits) - the weakest and most vulnerable members of society - has really made people angry. Duffield is merely expressing a position that is absolutely rife among a population belatedly cognisant of the self-interested nature of the people they have elected to power.

This lot are just Tories in sheeps clothing. A vile reworking of the same old game, refitted to get it over the electoral line. The people are disappointed - very disappointed - that following 15 years of devastating cronyism and corruption that has reduced the country to its knees, they have been promised an alternative, just to see it unveiled as simply a new manifestation of the same old same old. That disappointment will very soon turn to anger.

[Savor Dam]

Meet the New Boss...same as the Old Boss

[Avatar]

Well, as I've always said...the real problem with democracy is that whoever you vote for, they're all politicians.

--A

[peter]

Boris Johnson has released the first round of his political memoirs.

Given the fabled relationship between Johnson and the truth it will be as much a work of fiction as anything penned by the now (politically) unemployed Nadine Dorries - her of the steamy 'desk bonking' political novellas which have caused such derision in reading circles up and down the country.

We start with the revelation that the ex PM, incensed by the retention in Holland of covid vaccines earmarked for Britain during the darkest days of the pandemic, considered mounting a special forces operation into the country, with the objective of seizing said 'vaccines' and bringing them to their intended destination.

This nonsense rolled around in Johnson's orbit until apparently some advisor on military or security matters took him by the elbow and said gently, "No, Prime Minister - this is not something that can be done."

Truth or fiction? What does it matter if it sells copy to the Daily Mail readership who are getting these tasters in their Sunday paper.

No-one in their right mind will see this 'work' as anything other than the product of a semi-delusional mind; a mind so steeped in the fabrication of porkies around any and every subject it has ever communicated on, that it would no longer recognise the truth if it carried a placard and wore a hat with a big rubber arrow pointing down at its own head. Johnson is a buffoon who has acted at being one for so long that he has actually become one. He has no interest in being taken seriously, his focus being solely upon making money.

Let's leave the fool and his book exactly where they deserve to be - in the secondhand dump-bucket for useless junk products, soon to be consigned to the dustbin of history and forgotten for good.

-----0-----

It's interesting. The papers are full of the suggestion that Israel is about to invade southern Lebanon, that tanks and artillery are massing on the border in preparation for a full scale ground assault, but I have my doubts.

I think that if they were going to do it, it would be done already.

They have bad memories of previous incursions into that land and the results of doing so now would be unlikely to prove any different. Hezbollah are well prepared to face an invasion of their southern border, having had 16 years to prepare for it. They are dug deep into the ground, in tunnel and fortified positions that make the Gaza systems look like sand castles on a beach. The situation facing Israeli troops contemplating such an adventure has been described as a "death trap" by military experts who know the terrain and its occupants. The Israeli's must be cognisant of this and will proceed into Lebanon gingerly and by the slowest of steps, if at all.

There are reports of such slow forays in today's press which would tend to confirm this: slow probing incursions to secure small strategic positions, but certainly nothing that resembles a mass mobilisation and forward advance of the type being speculated upon.

I've just finished a book on the history of the hundred year war on Palestine, and the impression I've come away with is that the people of that land are as far away today as ever they were, in securing redress and recompense for the injustices they have suffered. They have in many respects been their own worst enemies, unable to overcome political infighting within their own movements, and largely ignored by a world more interested in broader questions facing the Middle East as a whole, and by Arab states each pursuing their own national interests, rather than the removed problems of a people of little consequence a distance away. The broadening of the current situation into the Lebanese theatre has done exactly that, insofar as the Hamas-Gaza situation seems suddenly to have once again taken a back seat. From now on it's all going to be about Lebanon and Iran, about the Arab world and its response to the situation - and meanwhile, while our attention is diverted, the slaughter in Gaza will go on apace.

For the extreme right wing forces that now control Israeli politics, there is no place for any Palestinians in the region. The only good Palestinian for them, is a Palestinian that is half a world away - that or dead. They employ every old trick in the colonial manual in divesting the Palestinian people from their lands - they will be better off by the presence of their colonisers, they are little more than primitive peoples, they are not even a real people as such...just itinerant bedouins who happened to be passing through - and underpinning the colonial nature of the project, a lamina of biblical based 'return' to the ancestral homeland has been painted, to conceal the true nature of the project.

Similarly for the extremist positions of Hamas, Israel itself and the Jewish inhabitants therein are anathema. There is only Palestine, and only Palestinian people should be there. No effort has been made, either to explore any possibilities of a communal existence with the Jewish people who have moved to the region, either by two-state solution or indeed within a single shared state, and no effort has been made to understand the American perception of the problem, key to its resolution though, the input of that player be.

But at the end of this book, the author himself a Palestinian with a lifetime's experience of dealing with the political players in the field, had this to say.

There are now two peoples in Palestine, irrespective of how they came into being, and the conflict between them cannot be resolved as long as the national existence of each is denied by the other.

A truth, that while it doesn't take us any further forward toward a resolution, does at least encapsulate the problem in a manageable form.

[peter]

Another day another escalation.

Now it's Iran, sending its ballistic missiles into Israel, certainly in a more decisive way than was the case in the previous missile attack back in (what?) July, but still in a way designed to minimise damage to the target and limit the fallout therefrom.

Despite the much higher proportion of high speed ballistic missiles used in this attack, the centers of major cities were spared and the numbers of missiles fired were not such that the 'iron dome' air defence system was overwhelmed. This was deliberate and could easily have not been the case had the Iranians decided to go 'full-throttle' at the country. Iran announced that the attack was in response to the high profile killings of the Hezbollah and Hamas leaders that Israel has recently carried out, and also to the Israeli activities on its northern border with Lebanon. Israel itself meanwhile, carried on its small scale forays across the border into Lebanon, where Hezbollah itself has been relatively inactive in response, probably because it simply doesn't suit it to react until Israeli forces are far enough into the country for it to spring the jaws shut on its long prepared trap. Israel are not stupid: they know this and will be very wary in their progression.

That Iran does not want this latest spat to scale up into full blown conflict is evident by virtue of its having informed the Russians - and in all likelihood the Americans as well - of its intended attack. America warned of its impending nature some hours before it took place, the suggestion in the media being that they had seen activity around known missile sites in Iran via their satellite coverage and had made the assumption based on this. I'd bet it was an actual warning from Iran itself that gave them the knowledge to pass on to Israel. How the Israeli's will respond remains to be seen, but I don't think they are ready as yet for a full scale head-to-head with Iran, so their response will probably be somewhat restrained by this. It might come as an overt attack on Iran itself, but I have my doubts. More likely directed towards some futher Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, either individuals or infrastructure, that are of significance to Iran.

Interesting to read that American anti-missile defences were used in support of Israel's own, and in addition Jordan shot down several of the ballistic missiles as they passed over its territory. Given King Abdullah II's recent speech in front of the UN general assembly in which he castigated Israel on its treatment of the Palestinians over years, it is a good indication of just where his affiliations truly lie, in that he would utilise his own missile defence systems in protection of Israel. One might have expected so vehemently outspoken a supporter of the Palestinian cause to be approving of any attack on the target of his opprobrium at the UN a few days before, but this it appears, is not the case.

One thing that our media has not yet approached in any detail is where all of this is going to lead in terms of its effect on the world economy. I can answer the question in two words - nowhere good. The price of Brent crude went up by four percent overnight and share prices on the world markets took a predictable fall in response to the escalation of the Iranian attack. This I'm betting is just the beginning. I predict that before this is all over, the world will be pitched into another inflationary cycle that will make the recent hike caused by the Ukrainian war look trifling in comparison. Think something along the lines of the earlier hike in costs brought about by the upping of oil prices in the seventies by Opec. Fuel costs, heating costs, production costs, pushed through the roof. World recession following hard on its heels. Hardship of types not experienced for many decades, going back into pre WW2 times. Not stuff that we in the West are much used to, or any good at coping with. At this point, even the much tested patience of the US and UK with Israel (certainly of the people, if not the administrations) might reach its limit.

[peter]

Labour has always been castigated as the spendthrift party who shower money around like confetti on public services and wasteful exercises in social amenity improvement. But I happen to think that borrowing to invest in areas that will generate future wealth (as opposed to day-to-day spending) makes sound economic sense.

Thus I'm not displeased to hear that Chancellor Reeves is prepared to alter the currently recieved wisdom that borrowing should be reined in, in pursuit of getting our grantedly way too high levels back under some kind of control.

In this morning's FT she is promising to "invest, invest, invest" in an attempt to kick-start our economy and re-establish some growth into our currently flatlining performance.

But much of what the Chancellor says has to me, the quality of a series of set-piece soundbites, rather than a laying out of a coherent economic plan.

Invest, invest invest? Sounds good as a starter - but then hand up and take on a warning tone....."but there will be 'guardrails' ". I like that - got just the right sound of, 'no need to worry - we're not the Labour Party od old: no Jeremy Corbyn about us, thank you very much'. Now use a good word from the Gordon Brown lexicon - "Prudence!" That's it - we're going to be prudent. Prudent, prudent, prudent.

"It's about making prudent, sensible investments in the longterm (good word - longterm) and we need guardrails around that." (My goodness, that nails it - strikes just the right tone. Hope my designer business suit reflects the same level of competence as these finely put together words. Must contact Lord Ali and see if he'll spring for another quick trip to Paris to refill the wardrobe.)

Now, where were we......

Fill the black hole left by the previous government, no return to austerity, fund capital investment in green energy projects, make sure the Office for Budgetary Responsibility and the National Audit Office are onside (don't want to repeat Truss's mistakes).... it's all in there. But what I ask (and this is me now - not that silly pretending to be Reeves stuff above) is she actually going to do? None of this tells us anything about how the nuts and bolts of our economy are going to be set to rights.

And the reason is because they aren't. The truth is we are damaged, and damaged beyond repair. Brexit, followed by covid, followed by the war in Ukraine has floored us. Ripped the heart out of the economy, the very functioning of the enterprise of generating growth and wealth, and ground it into the dust. And now along comes a war in the Middle East that will serve the coup de grace. Rachel Reeves has nothing in her bag of tricks that could begin to overturn this level of damage. To do so would be like trying to revive a long dead corpse on a mortuary slab. Maybe that's why we seem to want a global war, why we are even more gung-ho about stoking up major power conflict than even the Americans (and that's saying something)?

Because that's always been our trick hasn't it. War answers all the questions, and at least if it doesn't it wipes the slate clean and makes for a fresh start - a reordering. Except this time there isn't a Beveridge report to fall back on. A Clement Atlee or Nye Bevan to quietly and methodically pull it all together into a social framework that will carry us forward for another hundred years. No this time it'll be different. This time it'll be to sacrifice the bulk of the population at the expense of the few (the exact opposite of the post-war consensus of Atlee actually), to make sure that as the ship sinks, the baubles and trinkets, the flotsam that pops up to the surface, can at least be scooped up by the establishment one percenters, before they decamp to sunnier climes. And hell - even a population strangled in poverty generates some wealth. Like kids scratting on the tip that is our country, Reeves and the ilk that she supports will scrape out the dish of our economy, mop up any residual gravy left clinging to the sides of the bowl, and then fuck off into the sunset like those before them, leaving us to survive into future, or fall back into third world levels of poverty as we may.

Yesterday, I drove past a local further education college with Mrs P just as all the kids were breaking for their lunch. Heading across the road to the nearby McDonald's, they were all chatting and laughing, looking into their phones and oblivious to anything that was occurring beyond the parochial interests of their small circle of friends, of the regular nature of their close by daily lives. They had no realisation that the tectonic plates that effect their future were shifting as they spoke, that unlike any generation for a hundred years plus, their futures would be worse than that of their parents, or their parents parents. That they would be the first generation who in old age, looking back, would be able to say, "Things were better when I was a kid," and be actually telling the truth. It's probably just as well that they don't know. It'd only make them unhappy. It certainly makes me unhappy.

[peter]

Life is a terminal condition. We all suffer from it and we will all die from it.

Which is why I'm suspicious - very suspicious - about any attempts pigeonhole such definitions to the point where they can be used as the yardstick upon which the continuation to fight for its preservation should be based.

I'm not so much against the idea of so-called assisted dying (to be debated under a private members bill in the House in short order) as questioning of our politicians ability to nail it down with sufficient nuance and understanding that it won't become a farce or even worse, a source of deep fear and division within families.

Already a number of MPs are calling for the scope of the proposed legislation to be extended from those who are simply suffering with terminal illness to those who are "incurably suffering" as well. Seems fair enough. In fact it seems a better reason than 'merely' being terminally ill - which in and of itself says nothing about the degree of actual suffering that any individual is undergoing. In fact to me a better question seems to be as to why anyone with a medical condition, be it physical or indeed mental as well, should be undergoing suffering thereby, at all. Surely if we can eliminate the suffering element from the equation then this problem goes away of its own accord?

And what exactly is assisted dying? Its not really assisted suicide (another name for the practice) since the decision is to avail oneself the service will not be in the hands of the recipient of the procedure - not unless it's just a simple matter of asking for it and bingo, it's agreed to. So who will make this decision? A single doctor? A panel of doctors? The decision will not be thus in the hands of the person who will die as a result of it, thus in my mind it cannot be seen as a true suicide. The arbitrary nature of where different doctors might decide that the procedure should be offered is thus the first complication that could beset the practice. Different people (for doctors are just people - no more, no less) will inevitably see the point at which life should be terminated, the point at which it is no longer worthy of continuation, as being different. One might get lucky and get the doctor who agrees with you that your number has been called and the candle is no longer worth the wick - or you might not. And should doctors be expected to make this call anyway? It goes against the oath they supposedly take (do they still do that?) to end life rather than limit themselves to either fighting for its continuation or at least ensuring that there is no actual suffering involved in its being allowed to end (as opposed to actively bringing the end about).

And at what point does an illness become terminal? How can you know? From the first delinquent cell that pops up somewhere (because if you ultimately die from the cancer or whatever then yes - the condition is effectively terminal from day one)? So really it's going to be about statistics. The point at which doctors judge a condition is beyond the place where the liklihood of a recession is near zero. (It can't ever be zero, because 'miracles' do happen, even in the most (supposedly) 'terminal' of cases - and probably with more frequency than many people realise.) And as I say, different doctors will, based on their own experience and even particular mindset or psychological condition - whether they are say by nature an optimist or, like me, a dyed in the wool pessimist - draw this line in different places. Ultimately it will be absolutely arbitrary and based on the predilections of the individual doctors involved - and this can't be enough can it?

And who will initiate the discussion? Will it be the doctor at the bedside? Will he or she be allowed to make the first tentative suggestion that it might be time to drink the cool-aid (sorry - wrong metaphor ir whatever it is)? Or will this be prohibited, such that it must come from the patient themselves? Or will we have the same ludicrous system as in Canada, where the procedure can be offered by letter, as in say one celebrared case where the individual had applied for a state subsidised stair-lift and had, in the letter of refusal he had received, been asked whether he would like to be considered for the assisted dying procedure instead?

And these problems are before we have even got out of the gate. When your attention moves on to the really thorny issues of what goes on inside families, and how this legislation would impact that messy environment - then you are into the really difficult stuff.

Like how can you be assured that an individual who requests this procedure is actually doing what they want, and not what they have either been steered into thinking they want, or have been coerced into asking for, or are just doing what they think is expected of them, or are feeling guilty for not wanting to do, or......

The list goes on.

Or what about those people with 'terminal conditions' who can't ask for what they want (it'll happen). Will decisions be made for them? Where will a line be drawn here between assisted dying and murder? Is murder assisted dying? You're surely being assisted to die if you're being murdered! And if murder is assisted dying then isn't assisted dying murder in all but name? What if the doctor who recommends it is a beneficiary of the will of the person being 'assisted' to die? And what are the legal protections for doctors who suggest the procedure, or simply acquiesce to a request from a patient who's family subsequently decide that the procedure should not have been carried out? Or does the family have to sign an agreement before any such procedure can be carried out. And what if the doctor suspects that the family (shortly to inherit a substantial fortune post the death of the individual concerned) might have had a hand in the decision of the individual in question? He can't prove it - there's just a whiff of something intangible....not right. What does he do?

No. There is a million different reasons why all of this is simply too complicated a minefield for a blunt instrument like our Parliament to navigate its way through. To expect it to come up with legislation to deal with even one of these issues is too much. Taken in concert, the problems become insurmountable. Best leave alone. There are times in life when less is more, and the case of legislatively trying to unpick the Gordian knot of ethical dilemmas associated with this one, is one of them.

[peter]

The appointment of Sue Gray as Kier Stamer's chief of staff in September of last year was always a controversial one.

Having headed the official enquiry into Boris Johnson's partygate (and appointed to do so by Johnson himself), the subsequent shift to a role in the Stamer top team seemed to confirm suspicions that Gray had not been the independent investigator she was supposed to be, in her fulfilment of her duties in her former role.

Gray, a top level civil servant who has long exercised a serious amount of clout in and around Westminster (almost seen as the unofficial Queen of the corridors of power) with little going on within its environs that she did not know about or have a hand in. She'd been involved in the parliamentary ethics apparatus before being seconded to the partygate inquiry, and prior to this had a slightly murky past that may have even involved some security service work of some kind or another (she - rather oddly for someone of her background - took a break to 'run a pub' in Ireland at some point, before returning to Westminster).

But now it seems, her 'reign' has come to an end.

Since joining the Stamer team as chief of staff, she has run into serious trouble with the usual Labour infighting, but has by accounts attempted to hold the doors on access to the PM as her chief means of exercising power. In doing so she has run up against Morgan McSweeny, the guy who ran Kier Stamer's 'successful' election campaign, and an internecine battle had developed between the two that was threatening the very functioning of the central hub of governing in Number 10. Revelations that she was earning more than the Prime Minister seemed to infuriate the press (though why it should I'm not sure - she's a civil servant, not a politician, and is paid on a different scale altogether, commensurate with her position within that service) who had it in for her.

The debacle over Stamer's gift catalogue seemed to be getting worse by the day, and Gray was lined up to take the fall for it. Not of a pleasing disposition, she has the reputation of being a strict authoritarian style of individual, not conducive towards building the loyalties and friendships that could have protected her in the always predatory and unforgiving environment of a Labour leader's top office. Stamer himself will of course be looking for anyone but himself to carry the can for 'giftgate', and someone had to take the fall. His time in office has been a disaster almost from day one, and it seems that he's decided that Sue Gray must be sacrificed in order to spare him blame. She's his chief of staff after all; she's supposed to be responsible for making sure that the kind of skip-fires he's been experiencing, the bad publicity and roastings in the media, do not happen.

So she's had to go.

It's being presented as her having 'decided to go' of her own bat, but everybody knows the truth. Stamer has been watching the way the wind was blowing in the spat between Gray and McSweeny, and has decided that the latter has the upper hand. He's absolutely cognisant of the power struggles beneath himself, and the impact they have on his own chances of surviving until Christmas (things are really that bad - his backbenchers are looking on in horror at the collapse of what should have been the Labour government's 100 day honeymoon period) and has acted at last, in an attempt to shore up his rapidly crumbling political sandcastle.

I'm not sure it'll work. He's damaged goods now and his deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner will be looking for any weakness she can to get him out. If she could unseat him and secure the leadership role (by contest or coronation) - why, the next five years could be hers instead of his and he'd be consigned to the dustbin of forgotten history for good. Things are no less cutthroat at the top of the Labour Party than they are at the top of the Tories. It's always your own party colleagues who bring you down, not the political opposition. The Opposition are your opposition (as the name says) - it's your colleagues who are your enemies.

For my part, I'd love to see Stamer fall. I can't stand him. I think he's a power hungry, venal individual without a trustworthy bone in his body. A Boris Johnson without the charisma, and without a spark of honesty worthy of the name within him. I like Rayner barely any better, and I'd like to see her cut the legs from under him, just so I could watch her fall shortly thereafter. With the Blair Mark II Labour government all but lying face down in the gutter, perhaps we could get back to a proper style of worker representative movement that the Labour Party was historically always meant to be.

Cloud cuckoo land stuff, I absolutely understand. But a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?

[peter]

One year on from the Hamas attack into Israel and the hostages still remain unfreed.

Gaza is reduced to rubble and Hamas, contrary to Netenyahu's claims, are barely dented in their ability to cause Israel trouble. Now the maniac of the Kneset has turned his attention towards a fight against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and if indications are to be believed, is being handed his arse on a plate there as well. Discovering that his IDF are not quite the invincible warriors that he's presented them to be, that they are just ordinary people who are subject to exhaustion and burnout just as the rest of us are, he's turning his attention instead to the old tactic of punishing the people en masse, in an attempt to get them to do his work for him.

But there is no evidence that this is working either. The Lebanese population seems to understand that the situation with Hezbollah is entirely different to that which they had with the PLO in 1982. Rather than turning against the group, they seem rather to consider them as fighters who have their own interests at heart, who will provide the only defence they can expect, from the ravages of the invading army now snapping at their southern heels.

The old Israeli slash American plan of striking a path to Iran up through Lebanon and then Syria, seems to be making a resurgence (in Netenyahu's mind, if not the Americans), but no doubt Hezbollah will have ideas of their own about this. Was it 2006 when they scuppered it on one occasion before, and they will be no less inclined to throw a spanner in these particular works once again now. And in truth the Israeli's are demonstrating their neutered state virtually by the day. They cannot defeat Hamas when they are penned in a virtually indefensible compound of friable earth and broken rubble some miles away in the south. How then are they expecting to beat a well dug in and prepared fighting force, in terrain ten times more defensible, who are armed to the teeth and ready to fight to the death to prevent their advance? The idea that decapitation will effect the ability of the front line forces to mount a defence is for the birds. Hezbollah is a cellular structured organisation that expects to be hit in exactly this way at all times. It doesn't function as a top down organisation that is dependent upon instructions from above. Moreover it is exactly trained for the kind of down-and-dirty cage-fighting that it is now engaging in in the border region with Israel. The IDF are not playing turkey shoot with a civilian population in Gaza now; they are rather in the ring with a bruising opponent who won't just run and flee from place to place in panic while they have their way.

So decapitation isn't going to work. Collective punishment isn't going to work. So maybe goading Iran into the fight might. Perhaps the Americans can be coerced into joining the fray and getting Netenyahu off the hook upon which he has hung himself? This is half their project as well after all, isn't it.

But in Gaza the slaughter carries on apace. And in the tunnels under that benighted and blasted place, those poor people shiver still in fear, afraid that every day might be their last, and by now painfully aware that their leadership has abandoned them. That their fate has been sacrificed upon the alter of another altogether bigger aim - though who looking at the confusing and seemingly directionless set of signals coming out of the situation, can begin to even guess what it us.

[peter]

I'm off to Dublin later today.

I'm going for the second year running and will (hopefully) enjoy some fine dining in the restaurants my wife has selected for our evening meals.

I'm a bit of a redneck to be swanning around in sophisticated eateries, but it's okay - I've been out of place in them all over the world.

I don't spend a fortune on clothes or anything, but I do try to look half decent and on one occasion in pursuit of this I'd decided that it was time to purchase some new shoes to replace the worn out clodhoppers I'd been reduced to wearing of late.

I had searched for something reasonably priced and had been rather pleased to discover a nice pair of blue leather lace-ups in a local branch of Matalan. In case you don't know, Matalan is a store that sells stuff of reasonably decent quality, but that hasn't sold well elsewhere, and so it slips down the retail ladder to land in a general place like this, alongside other failed lines - clothes, bedding, household goods and the like. It's where people without much money shop, to put it bluntly.

Anyway, I was pleased with my shoes so later that evening, the three of us (myself, the shoes and my wife) found ourselves in a rather posh local restaurant, being ushered into the reception area, a lounge of soft sofas and deep chairs in which one could lay back while enjoying one's aperitif and hors d'oeuvres.

Given my new shoes, I had no fear in sitting back with my legs crossed, my new found friends on full display. Chatting insouciantly with the waiter taking our orders (as one does) I happened to glance down. Thus was the fragile bubble of my ego burst, when I saw that he also had taken a visit to Matalan, where he had purchased the self same blue shoes.

[peter]

The coverage given to the October 7th anniversary on the BBC yesterday was expected and perfectly justified, but had a slightly...difficult....edge to it, in the face of the horrors that have been visited on the civilians of Gaza, and now Beirut, in follow-up.

That forty, sixty, a hundred times more people have died 'on the other side' of this event, was little spoken of, and neither was the now clear fact that the Netenyahu administration has moved on from its (claimed) original aim of securing the return of the hostages to bigger things. (The idea that this is still central to Netenyahu's gameplan is for the birds.) Their fate is an abomination.

If one death is a tragedy, then two is double that. And 1000 dead is a thousand times the tragedy. This scales up with proportionate interest to whatever cumulative number we have now reached, and whatever the background of the individual killed, each tragedy remains of equal weight.

John Donne had the words for it.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send out to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

[peter]

Jeez! It goes from bad to worse.

The press are talking about James Cleverly being the front runner for the Tory leadership following his successful conference speech a couple of weeks ago, and a subsequent run of good media coverage thereafter.

This is the man so stupid that he joked about giving his wife the date-rape drug at a public event mere days after he'd introduced legislation limiting its medical availability due to its finding its way out into the public for ulterior usage. A man so embarrassingly out of his depth as foreign secretary that his performances in interview are almost painful to watch. A mediocre nonentity raised up by Boris Johnson, because he'd - Johnson that is - thrown everyone of any ability out of the party for refusing to back his atrocious brexit withdrawal agreement. (The same goes, incidentally, for the entire top tier of the party as it stands. Not a one of them would have ever made top office had not they been the dross that would have capitulated to literally anything in order to secure their places.)

And in other news the head of MI5 warns us that Putin will do any and everything in his power to foment trouble on the streets of the UK. We're in the grip he wa4ns us, of increased security threats at every turn, lurking around every corner. The Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians. The whole damn lot are after us. His job (in essence he's telling us) is the most important one in the country. No doubt he feels he's due for a bit of recognition and a rise in pay as well. Keep us fearful, keep us in check. You need us to keep you safe, so put up and shut up and let us do whatever we want. And tell you what you can and can't do at the same time. Because it's all about control isn't it. A scared population is a maleable population - they learned that in covid.

Well up yours pal. I'm not scared and I'm not maleable.

(Incidentally, isn't this the clown who sat with the director of the CIA recently and told us that Putin was bluffing when it said that Ukraine firing UK and USA missiles deep into Russia would be considered as an act of war committed by Nato. I think it was. Thankfully someone high up in the Pentagon didn't agree and told Biden that he definitely isn't bluffing, causing Biden to immediately refuse Ukraine permission to make the attack.)