What Do You Think Today?

[peter]

Even the Conservative Party MPs are not that stupid.

They yesterday voted the distinctly unclever James Cleverly off the balot paper, possibly because he was simply an inept a politician (but which of the other candidates isn't) but most likely because they knew that if they were to stand any chance in the next election, they had to be led by a white person.

Because (and it's a sorry thing to have to admit) we are still simply too racist a nation to ever vote in a coloured person over a white alternative. It's why a contest between white Robert Jenrick and black Kemi Badenoch isn't a contest at all. Not because the Tory MPs are necessarily racist themselves in respect of their choice - but they know that their membership is (they voted Truss in over Sunak for this unspoken reason) and they know that the electorate is. To go into the next election with a coloured person at the helm is to gift the election to the (all but Conservative) Labour Party, and the opposition role to Reform. It'd be to sign their own death warrant.

So it's Jenrick to win the membership stage by a majority that must be presented as within acceptable limits to not make the party look like a bunch of fascist loons. In reality Badenoch will be slaughtered, but the announcement will have her having been beaten by a decisive, but not embarrassing, margin.

54 - 46? A bit too close and convenient - let's go a bit more of a gap, 56 - 44. The real vote will be 80 plus percent to Jenrick, because a) the membership are a bunch of racist bastards, and b) because they know that the electorate are as well, so that to put Badenoch forward would be to comit electoral suicide, but this figure will never be allowed to leak out into the public realm. They might allow the released (adjusted for public consumption) figures to diverge as much as 60 - 40, but definitely no more; it'll be between this figure and the one I've opted for.

See if I'm wrong!

[peter]

I've just been staying in Dublin for a few days.

We've been at a top end hotel and have enjoyed meals in the finest restaurants the city has to offer.

Just to make it plain - we are not wealthy people....but....we have put into a few short days what many would spend on a longer holiday in lower grade accommodation. And it's been lovely.

But what is apparent is that there are, as always, many who can live at this style in almost uninterrupted manner.

And equally, I have been aware that, again as always, in cities the greater the excess of wealth, the greater the poverty on display that rubs shoulder to shoulder with it. And the poverty is grinding. It's reflected in the hopeless faces of the poor benighted individuals who are begging on the streets - people from whom life has simply got away, who for whatever reason have found themselves cast out and ignored, at the very bottom of the pile - that inverted pyramid of destitution that goes down from the bottom of the usual 'upright' one, by which the wealth vs numbers is often shown (the one at which the one-percenters - those I've been watching at play for the last couple of days - sit at the top).

The giving of alms is one of the five pillars of Islam, and last night, walking off my latest (and last for the moment) foray into the world of fine-dining, I could see why. Because never, never, never was I more aware, seeing those faces, that it's all just chance. How the cookie crumbles for me, for you, for every one of us. I could have just as easily been one of those holding out the begging cups, as the one dropping coins into them. Mere slivers of chance, no thicker than the filmiest piece of silk, sit between me and those people on the streets. Nothing I have done makes me more or less deserving of my position as they of theirs - or indeed (though you might not like to hear it) you of yours.

I return thus to John Donne's words of above. "Send not out to know for whom the bell tolls.....". That and to say - give alms. Those guys had it right when they came up with the pillars. That one is important.

[peter]

Yesterday the papers were full of smiling pictures of Katherine Princess of Wales, as she made her first (so called) 'meat and potatoes' appearance of the year - ie one in which a royal does one of those often unheralded meetings with ordinary members of the public, as opposed to a state occasion, a big industrial/business affair or a visit to one of the regions.

Yesterday Kate and William went to see the families of the three little girls murdered in Southport, and it being the Princess's first such visit since her revelations pertaining to her illness, the press predictably went wild. Every paper showered her in praise and on the radio later in the day, I heard LBC's Shelia Fogharty speaking at length about it, talking of Kate's revelations and asking whether such royal visibility (which the late Queen explained by saying, "You have to be seen to be real,") was really necessary.

For myself I had a different question.

What complete dunderhead of the Wales's office can have thought that a visit of Kate, her first post-chemotherapy outing as I say, to the homes of the Stockport girls families was a good idea.

These three girls were murdered in cold blood by a maniac - knifed to death in an attack that subsequently sparked a week of cross country rioting and public disorder.

What should have been a quiet unpublicised visit of the royals to commiserate with the victims families was instead absolutely overshadowed by the appearance of Kate. There was barely a mention of the lost girls in the media - they might as well not have existed. Instead it was Kate this, Kate that, Kate the other. I cannot but feel that any value that the Prince and Princess's visit would have had to the families would have been lost when they saw how their children - children who would not be coming back from the brink - had been forgotten, turned away from by a media for whom they might as well not have existed. They cannot have been happy about this.

I don't blame Kate and William for this. I blame their office for a) arranging her first visit to a place where privacy and sensitivity should have ruled the day, and b) for their knuckle-headed handling of the publicity of the visit, for making it anything other than a completely private one to which no media were alerted. This was no place for the royal media circus and they should have known it.

-----0-----

If October 7th has taught us anything, it is that Israel is not the country that it has been presented to us as being.

Certainly it began with events that cannot be justified by any argument of what has gone before, by the killing and abduction of citizens innocent of the crimes of the state they live in - but it has continued with an eye opening display of the lack of restraint, of proportionality, of respect for the basic world order of the rule of law, of a rogue state that recognises no argument against the means it chooses to employ in order to achieve its ends.

Israel has been exposed for the quasi-colonial project it is, supported only by the turning of a blind eye to its activities by a Western hegemony that should have known better.

Nobody in their right mind could fail to understand the need or desire for the post holocaust generation to have a place of safety to retreat to, but the Zionist project in Palestine has roots which go way further back than this. By all means, move to an area, throw down roots and take up the rights of citizenry that are gifted with this - but not at the expense of the indigenous population. Not by ethnic cleansing and the ensuring of a forced majority by the driving out of the indigenous people from their homes.

That the post war world sat back and watched this done is a stain on the history of any nation that would claim to exist in support of a rules based order. That we in the West have gone further, and provided the material support to make this injustice possible is to add yet further weight to the burden of guilt we carry. And that we, the British, must carry the lion's share of responsibility for what now is occurring is a fact that cannot be shied away from, and should now be stated in full and frank admission by our government. This would at least be a beginning.

It is time for this to end. Because if it doesn't - if this rouge state that has finally burst forth from its twenty-first century cover to reveal itself for what it is, a nineteenth century anachronism - cannot be reined in, then Israel is lost. It will die. By simple attrition, the life within its borders will become so difficult to maintain, that the people will leave of their own volition - back to the lands and families from whence they came, and the project will simply cease to be. The ongoing hostilities it has aroused will simply make continuing to live there when there are alternatives available, untenable.

We the British started this and we should begin the righting of it. Only by forcing the Netenyahu administration to cease its current activities, by the stopping of all arms and military support to Israel, can we bring this back into a manageable terrain. If we do not do this Israel is doomed. They - we - cannot go on as we have done before.....not if Israel is to survive. There has to be a settlement of this; there has to be a two state solution, and it has to be imposed, not by offensive force, but by the simple refusal to provide material support of any kind for anything other. The United Nations, which Israel so disparages could, if truly united, provide the very means by which it could survive - but only if it converts to the fold, begins to respect international law as something that it must also adhere to, and withdraws from territories not rightfully its own and to borders previously decided as being fair to all parties concerned.

We the British have little power left in the world - but we do have the power to begin the ball rolling on this. The contiguous presence of two states, closely aligned in friendship and cooperation, willing to draw a line under all that has gone before in order to secure a future for both of their children's to survive and thrive into...this is a dream that can be brought into reality. But Israel as things stand cannot be brought to accept this. It is bound to a path being run by a man who's sole concern is his own wellbeing. A path that if followed, leads only to its demise. There is no path to peace here that does not recognise the mutual right to existence of both parties for the other. If the only means by which this can be brought about is by the military neutering of the key belligerent in this, then so be it.

[Avatar]

Largely agree there really, although it may not be changing soon, this may be the beginning of that change.

I cannot avoid constantly considering the dreadful irony that a state that was formed (however dubiously) to protect people after literally thousands of years of persecution has turned around and so easily become the oppressors themselves.

And although it has hovered in the background for 50+ years, never before has it been so apparent that far too many people, including governments, academic institutions, etc. are incapable of separating criticism of the Israeli state from anti-Semitism.

For those 50+ years, Israel has held the hammer of the Holocaust over the "west" and out of a collective shame, guilt and empathy, they have allowed them to do whatever they wanted in the name of that.

If nothing else, the number of Holocaust survivors who have spoken out against the Israeli governments actions should tell us something.

They can recognise what they see.

This may very well be the beginning of the end of that though. I regularly have to remind myself that the present is a a state of constant conflict, between the past, and the future.

I fear that Israel, and indeed the rest of us, shall be judged poorly by history in this regard. But this is probably just another step in how the world changes.

And all change brings casualties.

--A

[peter]

The tying of any criticism of Israel to antisemitism is absolutely key to its methodology in securing the guilt laden support it has enjoyed from its western backers Av. Without this pernicious act of legerdemaine, it would be called out in the harshest possible terms for what it is.

Though this was not always so. The 'holocaust guilt tool' (for want of a better description) that you refer to, though separate from antisemitism in its broader sense, was only adopted later in the day (by Ariel Sharon if my memory serves me) when its value as a manipulative instrument to leverage acceptance of the unacceptable was realised. It is an unpalatable fact that the Israeli founding politicians including the first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, had little time for the holocaust survivors of the Nazi atrocities, seeing them as broken individuals who would add little to the required pool of strength and talent that would be necessary for the forging of the new state in the hostile terrain of Palestine.

But back to today, there are two dates of key significance in what is going on - not just the one.

On October 7th the world changed. As with 9-11, history will look back at this as being one of those key dates after which everything was different. It will be the date that the old order was finally broken and ultimately, the beginning of the end of Western hegemony.

The second date is October 1st. 1-10-24. On this day, Israeli dominance of the Middle East finally ended, when Iran demonstrated that it (Israel) no longer commanded the 'escalatory dominance' upon which its regional hegemony had depended.

Far from being the military failure our media has painted it as, the Iranian attack on Israel was an absolute success in demonstrating that Israel no longer had the single power to hit back ten times harder, any country that made an attack on itself. This was hugely significant since that escalatory dominance was all that ever stood between Israel and annihilation at the hands of the enemies it had so blithely created over the years. Suddenly its inviolability was no longer unquestionable. Suddenly the school bully was brought down with a message that said, "We can do this. This is just a taste of what we can deliver a thousand times more powerfully should we so choose." And what happens to school bullys when they are brought down? They don't suddenly become good guys, friends to all around them. They slink away, beaten and resentful.

So suddenly Israel finds itself absolutely dependent upon the USA to support its survival. To be in Israel today must be a very frightening thing. To know that the chickens are coming home to roost. Suddenly it is very alone in a very hostile place with its defences looking far less unbreachable than before.

So where does this go from here?

There are three possible end points. Firstly, it ends with the Israeli hegemony of the Middle East gone, with American influence in the region ended and a new world order where the countries therein begin at last to be masters of their own destiny. Finally, the ghosts of World War I are laid to rest, and the people of the region begin to forge their own paths into the future. Could Israel survive this? Its unlikely. Simply by virtue of their having squandered every opportunity for peace they've been offered over the years, by their brutal treatment of the indigenous people of the lands they occupy and the countries that neighbour them, they have no capital left to spend on goodwill. Even if they were left alone to survive, it is doubtful that the Israeli people themselves would choose to stay. The process of attrition I mentioned, the constant pressure from those whose land they have appropriated - pressure that in the new climate they would be hard pressed to resist......how many would choose to stay?

The second is that the region is plunged into all out war. This is problematic because it is much - much - harder than it sounds. Much as this is the scenario that Israel would no doubt like to see, the logistical problems of prosecuting a large scale ground war in the region are horrendous. America is already heavily committed in supplying Ukraine with the armaments it needs to support its war against Russia, its forces are depleted in numbers and hardly battle ready, and it has no real idea of what the spin-off consequences of engaging in such a fight could be. Would Russia fall in in support of Iran? Would the Turkish stand aside? And on the periphery what would China do? Would it actively join in, or just act as a supply and support partner for the actual combatants? Or would it stay out of the Middle East arena, but instead take the opportunity to make an opportunistic grab for Taiwan? Lots to think about there and simply too many it's.

And actually flying sorties from Israel into Iran would be a bitch. 1000km each way over hostile terrain, heading to gosh knows how many deeply buried nuclear sites. Refueling where? Returning to what? And if you go for the oil refineries, Iran has already said it would attack western oil refineries in return. The global economy is going to be reduced to rubble, to leggo bricks that need rebuilding from scratch - and that's at best!

So, at this bifurcating pinch point at history, one side leading to loss of influence and the end Israel, the other leading to full scale regional ground war (and potentially much worse), suddenly the reverse track, the upright leg of the Y we are at, looks like the clever option. But this depends upon putting Netenyahu back in his box: on forcing a climb down on Israel's part and the establishment of ceasefires and agreements to bring the hostilities to an end. And there is no future for Netenyahu in this. He has to go, and a less extreme, more peaceable administration be put in place to carry things forward (or backwards) to a more stable place.

Now tell me, if you were Joe Biden, which of these three options would you be looking at as being the best outcome? It isn't rocket science is it?

And if I'm missing something, an endpoint that I haven't considered, then tell me, because I'm blessed if I can see one.

[peter]

Kier Stamer is going to "slash red tape" and "rip out the bureaucracy" that blocks investment in this country by outside investors.

Or so he will tell a gathering of global business executives at a summit to attract investors scheduled to be held in London today.

Never mind what that will do in respect of the people that work for said business investors projects - the safety implications are already causing fears amongst those people and organisations who monitor such deregulatory promises - what gets me is the language used.

Why is it always necessary to project these things in imagery that conjures up pictures of people (Stamer in this case) wading through rooms bedecked with criscrossingʻs of red ribbons, slashing and hacking as they go. And armfulls of the stuff being piled out of upstairs windows down into the streets below?

Do we really need such hyperbolic language to describe everything these days: is a simple sober presentation of the planned removals not possible? I'm reminded of King Lear shaking his fist at the sky, telling all and sundry that he's going to "do such things - what they are yet I know not", rather than getting the impression of a man who actually knows what he is about.

But this is the world we live in,isn't it? Everything has to be thrown out, fully charged, as if world-shaking events were in the offing. Gone are the days of sober restraint in language: it's all, "Oh God, God, God!", rather than the reserve of that chap riding into the cannon at Waterloo, who turned to the officer riding at his side and said, "I say old fellow - I do believe my leg's been blown off," to which he received the reply, "I say - I do believe it has!"

And this is so reflective of who we are these days - what we have become. We in the West are reverted to children. We increasingly think like them, use their language and expect everything to be couched in terms designed to elicit a response based on childish excitement. Our politicians express themselves in hyperbole and overkill and our media respond in kind, mirroring back the hand clapping excitement or foot stamping anger as they deem appropriate for the case. None of the stately gravitas of an Iranian ayatollah sitting on a dias is ever approached by these gesturing clowns we elect as our playground leaders.

That's all. But a quick message to Kier Stamer. Do this investment thing properly. It's important (especially given the flatlining growth of the country and the fall in inward investment since Brexit). Don't let's have an international repeat of what you've been managing for your first 100 days at home - an unbridled fuck up. That would be all we needed to be taken back to the four corners of the world after the shit-show we've presented to it for the last decade and a half.

[peter]

The last year has thrown light onto some really dark corners of our (Western) society, not least of which is that we can no longer consider ourselves as being the 'good guys'.

This was brought home to me by a throwaway comment made by James O'brien, that Vladimir Putin was the favourite political leader of Nigel Farage.

O'brien delivered this with the condescension you would have expected from him in respect of any comment he made with the words Nigel Farage in it, but it struck me immediately because I realised that suddenly very much had changed and we could no longer sit in the lazy assumption that the world was easily divided into these two sides, good and bad, and we were on the good one.

Many have known this for a long time, but our very public support- both vocal and material - for what is clearly a rogue state has brought this into sharp focus more than ever before. Suddenly we can no longer see the other side as simply the bad guys while we enjoy the position of unquestionably being right all the time. Suddenly things like O'brien's condescension are no longer appropriate. Suddenly the contest between us and 'the other side' has taken on the nature of the bad versus the bad, rather than that of right versus wrong.

In other words, the image that our politicians and propoganda has pushed for all these years of us holding the moral high ground is proven to be an illusion. Our equivalence to the forces opposed to us is no more or less that of the equivalence of say Manchester United versus Leeds. No longer can condescension be used as a valid weapon against those who express support or liking for the other side: that trick has been exposed for the sham it is and it won't work anymore.

Sure Vladimir Putin is an evil c***. But the score of dead people that can be chalked up to us in the West since the fall of the Soviet Union far outweighs anything that can be attributed to Russia. In Arabs alone the figures run into millions. Who was it, Madeleine Allbright who was comfortable by her own admission, with the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children as a result of the sanctions programme imposed upon that country. And this is just a starting point.

And now we have the Israeli situation. That this country is now just openly doing what we have done undercover and via proxy forces elsewhere in the world for decades goes almost without saying. And we are supporting them in the face of the rest of the world looking on aghast. The message has been sent out clearly by our leaderships that there is no limits to what we will accept, no holds that we could, or would choose if we could, to put on what Israel is doing. We have given up any pretence at caring how far Netenyahu goes in pursuit of whatever mad aims he now pursues.

The day before yesterday in Gaza, Israel bombed the tented city of refugees and patients encamped outside the Al Aqsa hospital in Deir el Balah. Patients were reported burning with the drips still attached to their arms. The pictures finding their way out despite the news blackout being imposed by Israel (for covering up just such events as this no doubt) showed burning tents and terrified people flocking about, while gas canisters in the flames exploded around them. The day before that a school was hit and children of refugees sheltering were killed in numbers. The IDF say they 'will investigate' these reports.

In fairness to our media they are at last beginning to take notice of what is happening - to take reports from the embedded Palestinian journalists within Gaza - and to show (edited) versions of them within their output. Both the BBC and Sky are now presenting what Israel is doing, both in Gaza and in Southern Lebanon, as the crimes for which they are. The justifications have stopped alongside the pretence that there is an equivalence between what the Israeli's are suffering in comparison with what they are handing out. James O'brien to his credit, is foremost in his condemnation of what is going on.

The recent spate of attacks on the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon has at last begun to penetrate even our political leaderships, as something that cannot be condoned, justified by egregious excuses or airbrushed out of the picture; it is simply too much for them to be able not to comment on and condemn. The Spanish and Irish who have peacekeeping forces in the region are particularly vocal at present in making their unhappiness with Israel plain.

And so it goes on. And every day we continue our unstinting support for this murderous campaign where all rules pertaining to formalised conflict have been set aside, we further undermine our own historical legacy (at least as we see it) as a society prepared to stand up in support of what is right, what is decent. Every civilian death, every burning patient or dead child in his or her grandmother's arms confirms and stamps it in silver, that for us to carry on considering ourselves as 'the good guys' is to indulge ourselves in self-delusion.

[peter]

The Labour Party said as clearly and unequivocally as was possible during the election campaign that it would not be raising national insurance contributions or income tax if it won the election.

Now Chancellor Reeves is intimating that she will increase the former - not on the people who are employed in any business, but on the employer paid portion of the tax paid for every individual they employ. (In the UK tax system the NI contribution of any individual comes partly from their own wage each week/month and partly from an employers contribution for that person, which is calculated as a percentage of the amount that the individual pays.)

When being grilled about this about turn, the Chancellor and her lackey Jonathan Reynolds trot out the glib excuse that, "We said that we would not increase the rate for working people - we said nothing about the employer paid portion of the tax."

Well okay. Personally I never heard them making this distinction: I have strong memories of them, when being grilled on the likelihood of their raising taxes, simply guaranteeing that they wouldn't be raising income tax or national insurance contributions - but that is by the by.

But they definitely didn't say that they would be increasing the employer paid part of the NI contribution, on that we can agree, but what they don't seem to get is that it is just this kind of double-speak that people are tired of.

And this was exactly what they were promising that they wouldn't be doing. Hoodwinking people using slippery language and effectively lying by omission. In other words being just as untrustworthy as the other lot that we have just pitched out - playing the same games and being every bit as duplicitous and untrustworthy as they were. And we are sick of it. Sick to the back teeth. We've suffered with this for decades now, culminating in the egregious behaviour of the last 15 years where succesive Conservative government's didn't even bother to hide their grift and duplicity, so much had it come to be expected of them. And now we find that nothing has changed at all. I'm in no way against the rising of taxes - God knows we have to dig ourselves out of this hole we have gotten ourselves into somehow - but it's the duplicity that I can't stand.

Just for once be straight can't you. Be fucking straight. Is that really too much to ask?

-----0----

Yesterday on the 6 o'clock news, the BBC led with the story that the Prime Minister Kier Stamer and his Health Secretary Wes Streeting both agree that putting the new weight loss jabs onto the NHS list of available products could help in the fight to get people back into work and therefore be beneficial to the economy.

This was followed by an essentially fat-shaming piece about the cost of obesity to the economy, playing into the benefits that prescription of such jabs could introduce into this.

It was not stated overtly that the acceptance of this medical intervention would be obligatory, or that continued benefits payments might be conditional on their acceptance (effectively the same thing), but it was definitely there in the background. Sufficiently so that the Telegraph this morning has a cartoon playing on the subject (two svelte women in sunglasses in a department store, and one saying to the other, "You look fantastic! As thin as a jobless person forced to take a weight loss jab!")

At what point did the state get to overrule the absolutely basic bottom-line in medicine that administration of treatments must be conditional on the agreement of the person to whom it is being administered. Was it during covid, when once again the shaming of people who didn't want the vaccination was used as a starting point for discussion of the mandating of vaccines and the punishment of refusal to accept them. Have we really reached a point at which our own bodily autonomy is to be sacrificed upon the alter of the 'economic good'?

And what right has anyone, let alone the putrid BBC with its youth, status and beauty obsessed outlook on life (try to get anything other than patronising condescension from that outfit if you aren't included in those categories), to pass judgement on anybody else when it comes to their body? Fuck off, is what I say. Fuck off and look to yourself!

The world is going to hell in a hand-cart and this bunch of cunts we've elected in aren't helping any, that's for sure. If Wes Streeting and Kier Stamer started being a bit more concerned about tacking the poverty and hardship that sits behind the obesity problem they'd get more time from me, but shaming and authoritarian dictats I have no time for.

[peter]

We passed Kier Stamer and Labour's 100 days in office recently, and I'd just like to go through a few things that definitely wouldn't have happened had Jeremy Corbyn remained as party leader.

1. We wouldn't have seen some of the most needy people in the country have their pensioners winter fuel allowance taken away. This effects a huge number of elderly people who sit literally just above the absolute poverty line, who don't qualify for means tested pension credits. Why is there even such a thing as means tested pension benefits? Surely if the state pension was at a level that provided for a reasonable living, there would be no need for this? Nevertheless, it exists, and now is used as the qualifying threshold for receiving help towards heating costs during the winter. It is acknowledged that the cutting of the winter fuel allowance will result in many thousands of early deaths amongst the people who have lost the payment.

2. We wouldn't have seen the continuance of the two child benefit cap. This Conservative government introduced piece of legislation is acknowledged to place some 250,000 children into poverty, along with all of the suffering that this entails. It was introduced as a means of discouraging the feckless poor from breeding to much, never mind the declining birth rate and the fact that it actually costs the country money rather than saving it. How so you ask? Because the money spent on dealing with the social costs that result from the consequences of a child being raised in poverty, actually outweigh the savings made by the introduction of the cap. Brilliant stuff, and an ill that Corbyn would have ended on day one of his tenure in office. Stamer - no.

3. We wouldn't have seen the 'clothesgate' scandal. Proof positive within weeks of the new administration taking office that nothing but nothing was going to change under 'changed Labour'. More than just clothes and glasses, it emerged that Stamer himself had availed himself of more freebie gifts from wealthy benefactors and business interests, than any other Labour leader in history. He'd clearly taken seriously the lessons he had learned from his Conservative role-models (think Boris Johnson, David Cameron and Liz Truss). Corbyn on the other hand had accepted no personal donations at all, with the single exception of a free Glastonbury festival ticket - on the day he was scheduled to speak from the main stage.

4. We wouldn't have seen billions of pounds of UK tax money going towards providing arms and capital, in order to keep the meat-grinder that is the war in Ukraine rolling on apace. Rather we'd have seen a diplomatic and political push at the highest level to get negotiations underway to bring the slaughter to an end. This war was both avoidable and unnecessary. It could still be stopped tomorrow, but with our present policy (of blindly supporting whatever position America decides that we should) we choose rather to keep it going as more men die, and Ukraine is further rendered into a broken shell of the country it was. Not even to mention the extreme risk of the conflict broadening into a wider one that could only result in a conflagration the like of which we all prayed could never happen.

5. We definitely wouldn't be supporting the Netenyahu administration in prosecuting the most egregious campaign of human rights abuses ever conducted by a Western country since the Second World War. We would not be complicit in the deaths of nearly 50,000 men, women and children in Gaza. We would not be supporting what is acknowledged by the highest court in the world, to be at least bordering on a genocide. We would not be party to the use of collective punishment, of starvation and displacement as a means of prosecuting a conflict, of the deliberate killing of civillians, men, women and children, and the gross destruction of civilian property, that has characterised the Israeli response to the October 7th massacre.

6. We wouldn't be acting in every way, shape or form conceivable, to increase global tensions at a time when the world sits on the brink - bot figuratively, but quite literally - of conflict and conflagration on a scale that it has never before witnessed (and that's WW1 and WW2 notwithstanding). We'd instead be acting across the board in our foreign policy, as a mediating influence, acting to defuse tensions and build bridges rather than the opposite.

Now you tell me that this wouldn't have been better, irrespective of what you might think of Jeremy Corbyn's politics. Just tell me it wouldn't.

[peter]

Despite the USA beginning to finally take a harder line with Israel over its deplorable activities in Gaza, the collective punishment seems rather to be being increased than moderated.

Well over a hundred are missing or dead this past weekend alone, following a sharp increase in bombing and missile strikes, at seemingly random civilian targets in northern Gaza.

In a push to finally clear all Palestinians from the area, food and medical aid has been reduced to its lowest level since the conflict 'began' on October 7th 2023, and assaults with rocketry are an hourly occurrence. And this in the face of the US warning that Israel has 30 days to sort out the aid situation or face limited decrease in supply of American armaments as punishment.

As if to add insult to injury, some third of the ruling Kneset cabinet this weekend, attended a rally to promote the rebuilding and settlement of Gaza by Israeli's own population once it is cleared of the Palestinian population. Could the ethnic cleansing intentions of the Netenyahu Kneset be made anymore clear?

As to the instructions given to the population of northern Gaza to vacate the area, Gaza is already the most densely populated are on the planet. It has a higher population than central Tokyo, with 2.1 million people crammed into an area 25 miles long by 5 miles wide. One can only imagine what the effect of pushing that number of people into half the already crammed space would be. Let alone the fact that huge numbers of the people simply cannot up sticks and move out at short notice. We are talking elderly, sick and disabled people, people with complex needs and their carers, all told at hours notice simply to get up and get out.

The crimes simply heap up and up.

And on the status of Gaza and the West Bank as occupied territories, this is beginning to look like a misnomer. The definition of a territory as being occupied holds with it an inbuilt condition or assumption, that the presence within the territory by the occupying force will be temporary. Can this really be said anymore of the Palestinian territories mentioned? The occupation has been going on now for over half a century. It isn't occupied it's annexed. And as the acquisition of territory by force is illegal under international law this is the crime of which Israel must be held accountable by the international community. This has gone on under the guise of 'Israel defending itself' for far too long, simply because of the difficulties associated with standing up to the combined might of the forces allied alongside it.

As to October 7th, it happened. On this day Palestinian youth, inspired no doubt by the words of Hamas, burst out among their captors, wreaking havoc wherever they could do so. Terrible things were done. Terrible, terrible things. They were done by youths, for whom some of which that short burst of activity was the first free air they had ever breathed in their lives. They had been born as refugees, the children of refugees, into a prison camp from which there was no getting out excepting by death. "Gaza is the largest prison camp on the face of the earth." The words of David Cameron, then Prime Minister of Britain when he said them. They were not exaggeration - they were simple statement of fact. These kids born into Gaza will spend their entire lives trapped in a place shorter than a marathon race and narrower than a morning's run. People neither enter nor leave Gaza except in the most controlled of circumstances, such as guards might enter or leave a prison.

These are the circumstances under which October 7th happened and as such can we really condemn the perpetrators? Surely under such thinking, the course is neither to condone nor condemn? There are many instances where we grant our understanding and even acceptance of 'slave uprisings' during which the most terrible atrocities are committed - some are even given revered status (think Nat Turner's Rebellion) - yet the Palestinian attack of October 7th can not be seen in this light. Why? Because it is too close perhaps. Or because the Palestinian situation remains unresolved and we are on 'the other side's side'.

Who knows. In another time, in another place perhaps things will be different. But for the meantime we condemn.

But I heard Novara Media journalist Ash Sarkar being asked on the BBC's Question Time program, what in her mind, would have been an acceptable response to October 7th by Israel and I admit, her answer didn't do it for me. It's a difficult question and put on the spot, she said that Israel should have gone straight into negotiating for the hostage release. Thus far I agree, but am first to admit it seems not enough. But returning violence with violence? No - that doesn't work either.

But then it came to me. The Law.

This is exactly what international law is in place to deal with. If Palestine would seek to be a country that is recognised as an independent entity enjoying the rights, privileges and protections that come with the recognition, then it too must behave and be held accountable in front of a panel of its peers. So Israel's recourse, alongside said negotiations, should have been to the ICJ, and the UN as appropriate.

For either we are a rules based international order under the Law, or the world is a free for all that operates under the principle that might is right.

Which is it to be my friends, which is it to be?

[peter]

The first serious indication I had that something was deeply wrong in my county of birth was during the leadership of the Labour Party by Jeremy Corbyn.

Like the hundreds of thousands of young people who had joined the party to support his leadership bid, I was exited by this mild-mannered 'man of the people' who was clearly of a different stamp than the slick image conscious spinmeisters of the Tony Blair era.

Though by no means young myself, I saw in Corbyn's ideas a radical way forward out of a politics that seemed interested in one thing only, the pursuit of policies that were of benefit to the business and monied section of society. Perhaps here at last was a way back to the human centered vision of the Labour Party of old - certainly a failed vision in its day, but failure with a heart as opposed to success without one. Perhaps this time, I believed, it could be done better, we could learn from our mistakes and put the interests of people and families front and center of a humanist polity that could work for us all.

But others it seemed, had different ideas.

Watching the news, reading the papers as I'd always done, there seemed firstly to be an unusual level of vitriol being directed at this suprise new leadership, and the papers in particular were full, day after day, with stories about Corbyn's alleged alliances over the course of his already long political career. He was an IRA sympathiser. He was a supporter of Arab terrorism. He'd been suspected as a Russian spy. One after another these accusations were levelled at him from the already known to be right wing media, but this time there seemed to be more. It wasn't just the printed press, it seemed that the vitriol against him was also seeping into the supposedly impartial news output of the BBC, and other television programming.

Not only was the man being criticised roundly, referred to in contemptuous tones in news output, but more generally in media comment, no supportive voice could be heard. Talk show guests made sly comments to his detriment, he was joked about in sneering commentary in the most unlikely of places and not a word in his favour seemed ever to be said.

By the time of the antisemitism accusations it was obvious to any half casual observer that this opposition was more coordinated than anything we'd witnessed previously. Corbyn's rise has not been welcomed within the top tier of the Labour Party itself - that much had been apparent from the fixed smiles and gritted teeth of his defeated rivals in the leadership race as they 'applauded' his win - but now it seemed that there was an unholy alliance working behind the scenes to twist the narrative surrounding the man, to chip away at his clearly honourable and longstanding career, and to paint him as a dangerous subversive that if elected, would lead the country to ruin.

And it never stopped. Despite any other news or cultural event of significance, this drip, drip of constant attrition carried on. And of course history shows that it worked. Never before in my life had I experienced the news and 'establishment' output so clearly and communally aligned on securing one particular goal. It didn't matter what side it was coming from, the pressure was in one direction alone. Unseat Corbyn and return Labour into the safe hands of a business orientated leadership who would not threaten the established order by the introduction of radical socialist policies. The people had to be poked prodded cajoled until this object was achieved. By all means, have a different party to vote for - but not one that would change anything. This could never be allowed and all the forces of the different arms of the establishment, media, political, arts and celebrity - you name it had to be aligned against it. It was only really at this point that I began to realise what the establishment was.

Moving on, shortly following the fall of Corbyn and the completion of Boris Johnson's Brexit contribution (another place where unseen hands had seemed to be working behind the scenes, but this time to no avail - they'd underestimated the level of latent racism in the country) we entered the covid era and the full force of the state propoganda and coercion machine was unleashed. And this time it wasn't even covered up. If you didn't buy into a narrative that could be seen to be disingenuous, you were to be pilloried for it. Covidiot. Granny killer. Antivaxer. The propoganda and fear machine, the behavioral modification units and psychological manipulation techniques all swung into action and an unceasing and almost impossible to resist torrent of pressure was heaped down from above. And again the results could not have been achieved without the absolute coordination of every aspect of our establishment acting in concert. And woe betide any who did not tow the line. To this day, those brave individuals who stood up and asked with horror in there voices, "what are we doing?" are still paying the price. And to this day the establishment/state/vested powers make absolutely sure that no accountability will ever be asked of those who's decisions brought this about. Still to this day no reckoning of the true cost of what they did will be allowed, because the truth would be so damning. The establishment has closed ranks to once again protect its own.

And then we move into the Ukrainian war situation. And here the machine works overtime as well. The truth of the disastrous misjudgement of post-soviet Western foreign policy is kept from us, (just as the damning indictment of the Forde report which cleared Corbyn of any suggestion of antisemitism was kept from us), the eastern advancement of Nato in contravention of our promises to the Russians, and right up to their doorstep.....all this is subverted and twisted into a narrative that presents us as the good guys, always the good guys, while everyone and anyone who opposes us has by their very nature to be bad.

And then finally we come to the most damning thing of all. The thing that has been going on under our noses for decades and we have taken no notice of it. Our support for that last bastion of colonialism Israel. A situation that has seen us support the total subjugation and suppression of a people for 75 years. Cheering on from the sidelines like a dog returning to its vomit, when we are not actively involved in furthering the killing in a more material way than just with vocal support (think the supply of targeting information to Israel; information gathered by reconnaissance flights of UK airforce planes over Gaza, planes based at the Cyprus airfield of Akrotiri).

Or should I talk about the corruption, or the donations, or the offshore banking services. Or maybe the nondoms or the backhanders or the oligarchs - the list goes on. And on. And on.

So tell me I'm overreacting, that nothing is wrong in the heart of Denmark. That we are the good guys and that nothing is going on behind the scenes. Because I'm not getting it. I'm getting that maybe I'm the one who's been duped - not by misinformation and bad Internet players. Not by the Russians or the extreme political agitators. But by my own succesive governments. By an across the board establishment that cannot - simply cannot - have been blind to all this stuff, and therefore must have had a vested interest in seeing it through. Tell me I'm wrong.

[peter]

Okay - now that's out of the way, let's look at another piece of news that slipped out causing barely a ripple, which I'm betting, is just the way it was meant to be.

Odious Health Secretary Wes Streeting, in amongst the jumble of stuff he announced as part of his 'reform of the NHS' - not the first in its history by any means - quietly mentioned the creation of a 'digital passport' for every registered user of the service (ie every British passport holder in the country) that would hold a complete record of their medical history from day one of their life, and would be available subject to the usual security clearance, to any clinician in the service at need. If I have it correctly, data scraped from this collective collation of information would also available (with no names of individual patients included) for purchase by research departments of pharmaceutical companies, universities and the like, to aid in the better development and employment of drug and medical/health strategies across the board of public health care.

So much so good: it all sounds hunky dory.

But let's just think about it.

Wasn't there a call for vaccine passports during the covid debacle? And wouldn't they have been used determine who was allowed to do what, in that repressive period of madness when state authority over our lives suddenly ran rampant and unleashed a torrent of anti-freedom rules and regulations down on our heads?

Thank goodness on that occasion the attempt failed, not because the government could not have gotten away with it - it most certainly could.....look at what else it managed to get away with - but simply because all of its resources were directed elsewhere at getting the entire country 'vaccinated' with its faux vaccines, which themselves have done God knows how much damage to our collective health.

But on that occasion people were quick to point out that the vaccination passports seemed suspiciously close to the identification passports that Tony Blair had been so keen on issuing (and that he, no less, seemed to be one of the ones so stridently calling for the introduction of said passports now). There was no little support for the vaccine passports within the government (Conservative) of the day - certainly Health Secretary Matt Hancock was very keen for their introduction - but the means to get them up and running simply wasn't available, not with everything else that the government had on its plate.

But now, here we have it again. Quietly, quietly - softly, softly catchee monkey as it were.

And this time no public backlash. Not even so much as a squeak.

Now Wes Streeting is absolutely in the mold of the Tony Blair flavour of Labour Party policy. He's an authoritarian pedant, with his eye on the bigger prize. He's into the Labour-business connection, because he knows that's where the money is, and is absolutely after doing a repeat performance of Tony Blair's trick of making a great big fuck-off fortune the moment he leaves office (office which will hopefully by then include the job of Prime Minister on his CV). But this is a man who likes control - and who can believe that these digital passports of his are not the intimate bed-partners of the vaccine passports of the Matt Hancock era.

In fact it's not pushing things too far to say that this has always been the darker side of socialism - its basis in collectivism and the degree of control that this enables. You can't direct the populace en masse if you can't control them (even if your wish to do so is entirely benevolent). And people should be free to fuck themselves up. This is what freedom is. The freedom to get it right. And the freedom to get it wrong. And the roots of Labour lie in socialism. They've (in their new manifestation) shed their 'us and them' attitude to business (in fact they've hopped over the fence to the business side altogether), but they've decided to keep the authoritarian bit as they've done so.

And who could believe that, once set up and running, this digital passport would not be extended to include not just your health records, but your entire records, parental, schooling, academic, criminal, social, the lot. A complete picture of you compiled over your life to date, and available to whatever department of the state needed it for whatever assessment purposes it chose.

And how far then are we, from that 'social scoring system' that we accused the Chinese so roundly for adopting, and upon which such things as travel visas and passport allocation, type of work and leisure activity that can be engaged in etc, can be designated?

I don't know: perhaps it's just me getting paranoid again, but I see it. I see the risks in these things - the thinnest edges of the thinnest wedges - and I simply don't trust my own polities, my own state, my own country not to quietly take hold of those wedges and tap, tap, tap, them home.

Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear.

[peter]

In September 2022 following a police chase, a man behind the wheel of a car was shot dead by an armed officer as he attempted to bash his way past the police vehicles blocking his path.

He was killed by a single shot, through the car windscreen, which entered the center of his forehead.

So ended the life of Chris Kaba, a 24 year old who was by different accounts, either a violent gang member with a history of misdemeanours to his name, or a reformed character who had plans to train as an architect in the near future.

On examination it emerged that Kaba was unarmed and the police officer who fired the shot was duly charged with his unlawful killing.

The decision to prosecute caused a furore in the police at the time, resulting in numbers of serving officers trained in arms handling to relinquish their licences to handle firearms. But a couple of days ago the officer in question was cleared of murdering Kaba and the ban on reporting of Kaba's criminal associations was lifted.

Kaba's family made a statement that justice had not been done and that the verdict showed quite plainly the different values placed by the establishment on coloured lives in comparison to white. The officer himself spoke of his 2 year ordeal waiting for his trial, and his relief at his exoneration and at being able to finally return to work.

And then on cue as it were, the details of Kaba's activities in the days before his death began to emerge. He had, we were told, been driving a car suspected of being involved in a gang shooting incident the previous week. Kaba himself was suspected of being involved in the shooting, and far from being the innocent young man at the start of his life as he'd been presented as, was in fact a violent thug who quite possibly had a shooting crime under his belt already at the time of his death.

This all seemed to justify the actions of the officer in taking the final shot, and indeed his subsequent aquital at the trial.

All happy then (excepting of course his family and loved ones - because even 'gangsta's' have them, you know), except that certain people didn't seem to agree that this was kosher. Typically, lefties like Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbot spoke out saying that the media was being used to smear Kaba with gang related tropes, in order to justify his killing and the subsequent not guilty verdict on the man who fired the shot.

His reasons for taking the shot were that he'd thought his fellow officers were in danger, but I have to say from the footage it didn't look like Kaba was going anywhere anytime soon. He was fully boxed in and his attempts to drive his way out were not, as far as I could see, going anywhere. But no doubt things looked different on the ground as it were, and maybe the officer did indeed fear that Kaba had a gun. I'm not making any judgement on this score, or on the decision of the jury to aquit him. My concern is that what Corbyn and Abbot have said rings true.

As I watched the media output unfold I thought this has a bad smell about it. The guy is dead, he's not been convicted of any crime, leave his memory to his family be. The coverage had all the hallmarks of an establishment manipulation, just as the two politicians were saying, to justify what otherwise could look like a deliberate miscarriage of justice. That a biased judiciary had been used to aquit a man that was never going to be found guilty, whether he was so or not. That the jury had understood implicitly the decision that was required of them and had delivered it without delay (3 hours of deliberation time actually). That it was clearly understood that a guilty verdict would have resulted in an immediate return to the acutely difficult situation of police officers rising up in action against their employer, the state, and that this situation could not be countenanced, be allowed to happen. So Kaba's killer was always going to be found innocent - and the family's claim that he had not received justice was justified thereby. Not because the officer had not been found guilty, but because he was never going to be found guilty.

And that the media was now being used to smear the dead man, irrespective of the fairness or otherwise, but because it gave the justification that the state needed, to what had or had not been done in the courts.

And this for me is the nub. Because we have no way of telling. Because I had sat there,watching the news,reading the papers and thinking, "why are you doing this; leave the guy and his family in peace." Because it hadn't smelled right.

And now, when others come out and say what I'm already thinking, that this is a hatchet job being done in order to justify the state's actions, not news dissemination because it is in the public interest, then things start to get messy.

Because you simply can't know. This is where we are at. Kaba could be Al Capone in the making, or he might be Frank frikkin' Lloyd Right. We'll never know. And are we being simply told stuff, or are we being manipulated, whitewashed as Corbyn and Abbot say. Again we can't know. I know what I think our state is capable of. And I know what I believe that our client media can be relied upon to do when its services are called upon. But that doesn't mean it's actually happening in every given case. And so once again it's like the panopticon effect (and this is what happens when you can't trust your media). You might be being fooled at any time, so you have to assume you are being fooled all the time. And that's no way to be going on now, is it?

[peter]

It takes something for the Financial Times to step away from money matters and look into the wider world, so when they say that conditions in Gaza are at near famine levels you better believe it.

They show this morning a picture of hundreds of desperate people clamouring for bread outside a bakery in Khan Younis, and report also on a bomb strike on a school that killed 17 people nearly all of whom were women and children.

Meanwhile Secretary of State Anthony Blinken reports that "Israel has now accomplished its task of "dismantling" Hamas, and that negotiations over a ceasefire and the release of the dozens of remaining Hostages would resume in Doha in the coming days.

Is the man a complete fucking idiot? What doesn't he get?

Doesn't he realise that the hostages are so far from Netenyahu's thinking now that they might as well be on the moon for all he cares? That they've provided the causus belli that Netenyahu wanted to be able to begin his clearance of Gaza, and that nothing is now going to stop him? Netenyahu must have thought all of his Christmas's had come at once on October 8th. No wonder some people claimed that the lapse in security that allowed the mass breaching of the Gaza prison camp was not perhaps as accidental as has been claimed. Netenyahu has got exactly the justification he requires to continue with the ethnic cleansing of what he considers to be Israeli territory (and this started in the 48 war and has been the ongoing Zionist project ever since) on that awful day last year. Blinken is an absolute fool if he believes that any kind of negotiated settlement is going to save the people Gaza now. Half of the Israeli cabinet are already discussing the means by which the territory will be settled once the objective of removing the Palestinians has been completed.

At least Macron, who is hosting foreign officials and Lebanese leaders in an effort to provide aid to Lebanon is realistic about what is going on. Biden has clearly gone away with the fairies and Blinken is either a fool or a duplicitous c***. Or more likely both.

-----0-----

Peter sits in front of the bank manager.

"What I want is a loan of a million pounds."

The bank manager stiffens, his smile becoming wooden. Peter continues.

"But it's okay you see - and here's the great bit - because it won't actually be a million poundsat all, it'll be much less."

The bank manager looks puzzled. "How so?", he asks with audible suspicion in his voice. He's heard a thousand scams in his career; he can smell them a mile away.

"Because," Peter's piggy eyes gleam, I have got an absolute certainty in the 3.30 at Whapshot and with (say) half a mill sitting on the nose at three to one, you can't fucking (sorry about that) loose!" Seeing confusion in the bank manager's eyes he continues. "Look - if you take away the winnings from the horserace from the million I'm borrowing......I'm not actually borrowing any money at all. Now just hear me out......."

But rather than hearing him out the stupified bank manager opts rather to kick him out, and does so via the means of a large and well placed boot up the seat of his overfilled trousers.

The moral of this story. Look carefully at the proposals of Chancellor's of the Exchequer when they say that they are going to change the way by which anything is calculated - especially when it is the amount that the nation is borrowing. Because this is exactly the scheme that Rachel Reeves has cooked up, to allow herself to go and borrow an extra 50 billion quid to boost up the investing spending of the country.

Well - at least it isn't to put it in the pockets of the richest people in the country in the form of tax reductions (ala Liz Truss - we saw where that went), but no doubt it'll end up there by an alternative route. No wonder the City is looking on like our bank manager, with a very worried look on it's face. It's getting nervous. It's right to be. Prepare for meltdown because Houston, I think we have a problem.

[peter]

It appears that Israel has made some limited strikes in Iran, heeding American requests to stay short of striking key energy sites or those where the country's nuclear development program is underway.

Details are scanty as yet, but it looks like the attacks have been limited to military related targets such as Revolutionary Guard bases in the south-west of the country. Also there are reports of bases in Syria being hit, which is slightly concerning in terms of its broadening of the conflict implications, but this notwithstanding the overall sense of the reports seem to be that the strikes are not as dangerous (in terms of sparking off a head-to head confrontation that would draw America in) as they might have been.

But the situation remains very dangerous.

I watched an interview yesterday with retired army colonel and Trump advisor Douglas Macgregor, who is very concerned with the potential of the current situation to spiral out of control. He made observations about the recent attacks in Turkey where it appears that Kurdish elements in neighbouring Iraq and/or Syria are suspected of being involved in the deaths of 5 people in an arms facility outside Ankara. Macgregor noted that this was likely to have been fomented in part by American secret service activity, sent as a warning to Turkey not to involve itself in any future conflict between Israel and Iran. He didn't feel that it would impact the Turks to any great degree, noting that their army was quite capable of dealing with any threats from the Kurdish quater, as well as providing aid to Iran should it feel the need to do so.

There are, he said, large numbers of Russian troops on the ground in Iran, involved in operating sophisticated air defence systems which they (the Russians) have provided. There now appears to have been a second Thaad system supplied by the USA to Israel, alongside the requisite trained military personnel for its operation. This puts, he said, hundreds of US troops right on the spot where Iran is almost forced to make an early responsive attack to any Israeli attack on itself. The Thaad systems have an easily identifiable radioactive marker giving information on their positioning, and inevitably Iran would be aiming to take these advanced air defence systems out early in any conflict. American deaths in Israel would virtually force the USA into the conflict in a hands on way, and from this point it would spiral rapidly.

These things, together with the various naval presences around the region, puts all of the pieces in place for a scenario that leads nowhere good. Thus the Israelis having kept their response to the missile attack made on them on October 1st somewhat limited must be seen as a small positive in a situation that was looking increasingly dangerous by the day.

It is also significant that Iran is being formally invited into the BRICS organisation and that Chinese President Xi Jinping has welcomed them at the current meeting being held in Russia. While China are not likely to become physically involved in any Middle Eastern conflict, they would certainly take a keen interest in following proceedings and would not be adverse to providing material support in terms of armaments and other equipment as deemed necessary.

But for today it seems, we might thank the Gods that perhaps - perhaps - something akin to common sense has at last won the day. If Israel has indeed heeded the US request to limit the scope of its attack on Iran, its probably more likely to be in result of its being aware of its total dependency of USA support (militarily and economically both) in order to survive. It would not like to bite that feeding hand, despite what Netenyahu might say in his bluster. But nevertheless a win is a win, whatever the reason that sits behind it. Netenyahu still wants America in the war against Iran alongside itself, so we're not out of the woods yet - not by a long chalk - but we've taken a step back from the precipice, and that's something to be thankful for.

[peter]

I've read two articles already this morning in which quotes from individuals have included sentences that, you know, pointlessly interrupted themselves to include the words "you know".

One was by the Conservative hopeful Kemi Badenoch and the other some nonentity who fronts a past their prime rock band and who'd read a story on a children's bed time BBC show.

It's like, like the word like, that silly kids insisted on using in their speech a few years ago and still hangs around in the diction used by some adults. But I'm not sure what this 'you know' adds to a journalistic piece. Perhaps they think by including it it makes the responses sound more feal, more spontaneous or something. It doesn't. It's just an irritating distraction for people who simply want to get to the nub of whatever point the article is going to make (though why the BBC news website should have thought it worthwhile including a piece on aging rock singer's reading kid's stories - or indeed how I found myself wasting time reading it - is anybodies guess).

And while I'm on about it, have you noticed how Sky News reporter Beth Rigby insists on dropping the letter 'g' from any word she says endin' in -ing. So fishing becomes fishin', or asking becomes askin'. It's a lazy form of regional pronunciation utilised by some regional dialects (cockney most commonly {in both senses of the word}) but used by a presenter it sounds more like affectation, as though she wants us to believe her to be a bit more 'working class' (innit) than she really is. Priti Patel used the same linguistic tick and it was just as irritating coming from her as well.

Peevish little gripes I know, but you can tell it's a slow day for news that I waste time upon it.

It's not actually slow in reality, but truth is I'm a bit bored with my usual end of days stuff and am casting about.

Still, I imagine you are gagging to know my thoughts on what is (or isn't) happening in the Middle East, so I suppose I'd better get on with it.

-----0-----

Okay, so Israel made a rather limited bash at a number of Iranian military installations which has angere some of the hardliners in the government as being a bit limp-wristed. Netenyahu rounded on his critics screeching that he wasn't being told what he could or couldn't do by America or anyone else! But the fact remains that he hasn't exactly left Iran as a smoking pile of rubble, and both its energy infrastructure (and the global energy markets thereby) and its nuclear program remain (as requested by the Americans) intact.

In fact it was one of those 'deescalatory escalations' that exchanges between Israel and Iran have come to specialise in.

Iran for their part has played the attack down to its minimum. "Pufft!," they say. "Never even felt it!" This is good from their part (true or otherwise) because it means that they can be limited in their response in turn, or even do what both Biden and Kier Stamer have encouraged, and not respond at all. Blinken or Biden, or whoever is actually in charge in America these days, has said that it's time to get the stalled negotiations over Gaza up and running again, but this is cloud cuckoo land stuff and both the British and American leaderships know it. In fact there's every reason to believe that both are not only cognisant, but are fully on board with the so called 'generals plan', a plan put forward by retired Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, which involves the wholesale clearance of northern Gaza and subsequent resettlement by Israeli settlers after rebuilding.

To this end the IDF have issued instructions for all inhabitants of the said region to immediately quit the area, subject to its becoming an intensive combat zone in the very near future. Any civilians remaining will be considered as doing so for reasons of aggression against Israeli forces and will be treated as enemy combatants and placed under seige. The acquisition of territory by aggressive takeover is illegal under international law, but neither Israel nor its Western allies seems in the slightest bit fazed by this. In fairness, it's a long time since any international law considerations have had any sway in this conflict, and it seems that we have decided that these are an irrelevance that we can simply ignore when it suits us to do so. So much for an international rules based order. But make no mistake, the rest of the world watches on and takes note. It was sobering to listen to President Xi of China, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the assorted delegates of 80 different representative nations at the BRICS organisation summit recently, all talking with more humanity and care than anything I've heard from a western leadership in a long, long time. Not what we are used to at all. No wonder our media is choosing to stay away from this subject (as it is on the disastrous war in Ukraine) and confine itself to easier issues.

But the truth is that Putin had every right to look like a dog with two dicks at the summit. He's effectively won. The words of Khamenei are true. Western civilisation are has revealed its true face this. This, he said, is the western civilisation. Visible over the corpses of 45,000 dead women, children and men in Gaza, the growing number of the same in southern Lebanon. You need look, he said, no further.

And Putin sat at BRICS looking smug. He's won the war in Ukraine, he's not only thrown off the attempts of the West to isolate and sabotage the Russian economy via the imposition of global sanctions (which no-one has taken any notice of), but he's also been an influential founder member of an organisation that for the first time in decades, threatens the Western hegemony and unipolar world that has resulted from it. The leading voices at the summit were clear that the dollar has to be shifted from its position as the reserve currency of the world, and it looks likely (not least because of our disastrous association what is going on in Israel and Lebanon) they will achieve their desires. Our cache is irretrievably damaged by our refusal to acknowledge the depravity of what has transpired since October 7th and our active participation in its execution. In a world of shifting power bases and increasing financial and political tension, the consequences of this cannot be overstated.

[peter]

Gosh, how badly have Israel managed the death of Hamas leader Yaya Sinwar as a means of demotivating any potential recruits or indeed existing fighters in the continuation of their struggle.

Don't they get that by the release of that footage that shows a political leader, not dressed in immaculate army fatigues in an office, but down and dirty at the front line of a strike zone with an AK-47 in his hand, was about the most effective of recruitment tools they could have utilised in the minds of any young Palestinians watching it.

Here (they will see) was their leader, not afraid to live and die as he asked others to do. He was, in those final shots where broken and dying he looks head on to the drone that will kill him and contemptuously throws a stick at it in order to remain fighting to the end, Paul Maud'dib to the West's Baron Harkonnan.

Dear God, what were the Israeli's thinking in releasing this footage?

And of Sinwar himself.

We've heard how Israel has "decapitated the snake", how Sinwar's death will leave Hamas rudderless, lost and directionless. What world are these people living in? Sinwar knew he was going to die a violent end from day one of his life. Born into the ghetto, later to be prison camp of Gaza, he spent his entire life - much of it in prison - engaged with and facing death on a daily basis. The surefire knowledge of early death is hardwired into these guys. Are we to believe that the organisations they represent are not ready for such eventualities? Their occurrence is the only absolute they have in their brutal and often short lives. We are being fed garbage if we are told any different.

As for using Sinwar's death footage as a recruitment tool, I suppose it makes a bizarre kind of sense. The more Palestinian kids can be recruited into the fighting units of Hamas, the more the Israeli's can kill and be sure the threat from them is ended. The force marching of the population on the death marches to the south (for in an eerie reenactment of what was done in wartime Germany, this is what they are) is by far a less convenient way of eradicating the Palestinian population than at the end of a drone sight, so it makes sense to get as many of them into the front line as possible. And with a population that is fifty percent children, there will be no shortage of willing candidates for the future, ready and willing to fill Sinwar's boots.

Because this isn't going away. Palestinians have been sidelined in Gaza for too long and now is (as they see it) their time. It's fight or die. There is no going back for them - they either emerge from this with their goals met or they perish in the attempt.

And here is where they differ in absolute manner from the Israeli population and the IDF fighters that prosecute their wars. With the Palestinians its down and dirty in the mud, grizzly and gnarled fighters that have no end but one of blood and conflict. There is no prancing around making selfies in front of exploding villages and towns for them. They are in those towns and the fight for them is not at a distance, it's hands on in front of their faces. The truth is, that much vaunted force the IDF is simply not made up for anything but the shortest of conflicts. It's blow your enemies to bits with missiles and bombs, and then go in for a few days of mopping up for them. They simply aren't made up for months of hard hands on combat, watching their comrades die in numbers around them. Their will collapses under such circumstances and they fall apart. This is what they face in southern Lebanon and the signs are that they are being handed their arses on a plate.

And that makes the situation hyper-dangerous. Because Israeli president of old Golda Meir was once asked in interview whether Israel, if faced with an existential threat, would use a nuclear weapon, and she replied without hesitation that they would. Are we to believe that Benjamin Netenyahu would be any less inclined to do so? And if the escalatory cycle that is now a very serious possibility of continuing with Iran, and the drubbing Israel are getting in southern Lebanon, and their failure to defeat Hamas in Gaza, are not together beginning to look like exactly that existential threat, then I'm a Dutch man.

As an aside, I'd like to add a comment about the recent retaliation of Israel to Iran, which I'd observed was limited to military sites rather than engaging energy and nuclear facilities.

I'd gone with the reported commentary that this restraint on Israel's part was probably due to their following the requests of their American backers, not to do anything that could escalate the conflict to the point where they (the Americans) were drawn in, or that the energy markets of the world were disrupted.

These arguments still hold, but yesterday I heard another that I hadn't thought of. The Israeli response was limited because they were afraid. The commentator said that the successful attack on Israel by Iran had spooked them with its ability to penetrate their defences. Aware of the Iranian capacity to repeat that penetration but multiplied a hundredfold, the Israel's had suddenly grown cold feet for a head to head confrontation with Iran. And thus was their long awaited response so limited. The Israeli's have not been noted for their reluctance to strike back with overwhelming force against any who attack them over the course of their history. Now seems like an odd time to start. Perhaps there could be some truth in this latter idea. Professor John Mearsheimere had earlier said (at the time of the attack by Iran) that Israel had lost what he called "escalatory dominance" in this conflict. ie It could no longer muster the overwhelming force that it has previously always enjoyed over its rivals and suddenly a full on war with Iran didn't look so inviting. Maybe the timidity of their response had something to do with this. Who knows.

[peter]

On Saturday last, the back of my front incisor tooth fell off.

It isn't painful so much as irritating and uncomfortable, there being a sharp edge that abraids my tongue and which I seem incapable of leaving alone. So duly, yesterday morning I phoned my dentist, of whom I now am a private patient, the practice having ended its NHS participation earlier in the year. I'd have changed at this point to another NHS practice had I been able, but there aren't any. Not only in my town, but barely in my whole county.

I don't pay a monthly dental insurance plan. The plans available don't cover treatment, only checkup and cleaning services. That I can pay for as I attend. An insurance that doesn't cover treatment costs isn't to my mind an insurance at all. What use would a car insurance be that only covered the cost of assessment of the damage to a car following an accident? That's normally the free bit - the estimate it's called. The insurance covers the cost of the repairs. That's how it works. But not, it appears, in the case of dental plans. Screw that!

My dentist still has me over a barrel however, because if I didn't attend for regular checkups (I would anyway) I'd loose my registration with the practice altogether, and would likely struggle to get registered with another.

So anyway, I made the call. I'm now waiting a week for my appointment at which point I'll have a limited number of choices. Either to pay an exorbitant amount of money, quite possibly running into thousands, for a tooth cap or crown or whatever. Sacrifice the tooth and have it pulled, costing a few hundred quid. Or maybe, just possibly, she'll be able to 'patch it up' with a reconstructive filling. Or maybe the tooth will still pass muster of sorts and I'll just have to get used to it scraping away on my tongue.

It's an absolute certainty that any work I have done will cost me the wages I've earned over months as a part-time semi-retired worker - money I'd hoped to use on a holiday or something, that my normal pension income doesn't run to. Looks like that's out and my work, rather than paying for a little luxury will have to go instead on the luxury of having teeth. I've worked my entire life paying taxes and national insurance, but somehow this hasn't been enough. Funny, but when I was a youngster, I could have walked into any dentist in town on the day that tooth broke (well - not on a Saturday, but you get me) and had the necessary work done free of charge as part of the NHS system (up to, and including caping and cosmetic work). Now I must work beyond my retirement time, in order to be in a situation to even see a dentist, let alone save the tooth. How many people in my position simply wouldn't have a dentist to see or money to pay for treatment if they did? They'd have to fall back on waiting for the situation to blow up into a full scale dental emergency (one that would kill them if not treated) and then resort to the A&E department of the local hospital. And the hospitals really need that.

Tell me that this isn't a fuck up and tell me I don't have the the right to ask what exactly I've been paying for all of these years? Somehow a smaller and smaller section of our population seems to have been getting richer and richer while the services seem to have been getting worse and worse. I wonder, could the two things be in any way related?

-----0-----

I see Israel has passed legislation in the Kneset that will outlaw UNWRA in the country in the next 90 days. Chiefs from the United Nations organisation say that this will make their aid provision operations in Gaza almost impossible, since they will not be able to liase and operate from any site in Israel. Their key supply chains will simply cease to be.

So Israel, far from attending to the USA demand that the aid situation in Gaza must be addressed in serious fashion in the immediate future (or Israel risks limited arms supply restrictions), has instead decided to effectively cut all aid into the occupied territory altogether. Well as that will be to reduce next to zero down to zero, I'm not supposing that it'll have much impact on the lives of the people desperately clinging on in there (safe in the knowledge that if they were to leave their homes that they would never - never - be allowed to return), but still, it's not great is it?

I wonder how long the world is simply going to sit back and watch this wholesale destruction of a people go ahead? When the pictures coming out start to resemble those from Biafra or Ethiopia in times past? Will that be enough? Or will we just sit back and watch a people die? Or be murdered in front of our eyes to be more correct about it. And will we allow our own politicians and governments to slide away from their role in facilitating it? Or Israel to simply carry on as if nothing has happened: as if they've done nothing wrong, "nothing to see here," style of thing?

Jesus! How have we come to this place? What and where did we go wrong?

[peter]

UK Budget day, but honestly, I can't find myself interested.

Chancellor Reeves has already let us know what is coming. Big taxes to fill the black hole. Big borrowing to boost our growth. Big changes in the fiscal rules to give herself more flexibility.

Business is less than happy, considering the rise in employers NI contributions plus the rise in the national minimum wage a double whammy. The City is looking very nervously at the gilt markets, as if in anticipation of another 'Truss event'. (Nb. This must be a concern for Reeves, not just in terms of what she is doing, but that such market fallout from a budget can occur at all. Truss's disastrous budget brought down her government within weeks; it must have shaken all potential Chancellor's of the future, to see just how badly things can go wrong if they make a misjudgement.) And basically, we are all going to be poorer. (Tell me something I didn't know.)

It's (as always) sunlit uplands round the corner, if we'll just soak up a bit of pain first. Then we'll never have had it so good.

No dear; You'll never have had it so good. And slimy Wes Streeting. And Slippery Kier Stamer. You lot will retire from politics with your futures assured, the 'Kercching!' of your personal tills ringing out even as you sleep. For the rest of us it will be shit. We'll get poorer while a new lot of barrel scrapers look for ways to wring the last dregs of the nation's wealth into their bank balances. Let's just for once be honest about it.

-----0-----

Last night I watched the 1984 war drama film Threads which (I'd guess for pretty obvious reasons) has been put up by the co producers, the BBC, on their i-player site in the last week or two.

A brutally realistic depiction of the lead up to and aftermath of a nuclear war, seen through the eyes of two families living in Sheffield (where a close by Nato base has recieved a direct hit), the uncompromising presentation of the initial devastation and subsequent social collapse is unrelenting and painful to watch.

One striking aspect of the drama, presented as a docu-drama with occasional over narration by an emotionless BBC style presenter, was just how rapidly the planning of the state fell apart, in terms of provision of emergency services to the surviving population. What should have been the lifeline thrown to the panicked and broken remains of the society, rapidly descended into those with the power (and guns) effectively taking what little food and rations for themselves, under the justification that 'they were the ones who needed it to rebuild the system'. They were of course, just looking after themselves because they could.

I don't need to go into the horror of this production here - if you want to see it, it's on the BBC i-player and also (I think) available free on YouTube. It's a grim nightmare with no happy ending, that was made as accurately as possible as things would likely be, given the state of preparations of the day. There is no reason to believe that things would be any better today were the worst to happen. But the question for me is why the BBC has chosen to screen it now (other than the obvious, that we're closer to the event happening than we probably ever have been before, with the possible exception of the Cuban missile crisis). Or perhaps I should ask, what is it that the BBC hopes to achieve by this screening on its 'on demand' service?

My hope would be that they hope that some of our decision makers take the trouble to watch it. It would certainly focus their minds on exactly the risks they take with every little incremental provocation and escalation they endorse. This would seem to me to be the spirit in which it should be shown. If it's simply there to frighten people, then it's poorly done. People don't deserve to be terrorised by their state broadcasting service just for viewing figures or sensationalist impact. It's not fair (and they did enough of it during the covid scandal). There has to be a positive value to be gained from such a screening other than just its misery-porn one.

I'm very worried that we have a generation of MPs who aren't old enough to remember the effects of nuclear weapons usage, for whom the words are just ephemeral, with no substance. They should be made to see the dramatic docu-drama as an absolute prerequisite of stepping into the House and voting on any issues that are relevant to our current dangers. As to our government, they should also be obliged to sit and watch it as part of their introductory briefing to their roles. All of them.

God help us if our leaderships don't realise where their decisions could take us; I mean really realise.

[peter]

Tax more. Borrow more. Spend more. That's the general summing up.

Classic Labour stuff from Chancellor Reeves in yesterday's budget - the first from a Labour Chancellor for fifteen years - but don't let people kid you that the Conservatives, had they remained in power, would have done any different. This country is so down on its arse, that tax rises were on the cards whoever won the last election, and borrowing to rebuild the shattered public services was an absolute guarantee as well, if a level of deprivation that would threaten to have people out on the streets was to be avoided.

So it's all going just to plan. The Tories are out of office so they can throw their hands up in cod-horror at Labour's 'extravagance'. The (changed, new or whatever you want to call it) Labour arm of the UniParty gets to do what it has to, nice-cop, nasty-cop style, and the show goes on. And all of that money - borrowed and raised in taxes - where do you think that (once it has been poured into, and filtered through, the public services) ends up? Why - back in the hands of the richest people in the country where it belongs. Who runs the outsourcing companies of the private financing initiatives? Who owns the companies that bet the huge building and repair contracts on hospitals and schools. Even the increased monies of the minimum wage and the increased pay to public sector workers filters upwards through their mortgage payments, rent payments and the products they buy, essential or otherwise, back, ultimately, into the pockets of a few extremely rich and powerful individuals. What goes around comes around, and what we saw yesterday was just the second act in a play where all the players, pre-election and post, were acting from the same script. And each one knows that what they've done is to just give the plate another spin to keep it going just a fraction longer, before it comes crashing down.

But that's all they needed to do. Because in so doing they maintain the facade, however more briefly for, that we have a future as a wealthy nation, that we are not totally and completely and irreversibly screwed. That, contrary to the song, the only way is down. And needless to say while they spin the plate, a goodly portion of the dregs that remain stuck to it spin off into their pockets, for them to enjoy elsewhere when the pantomime is over.

More money for the one percenters, more money for their facilitators in Westminster, down the tubes for the plebs. That's a better summing up, I'd say.

-----0-----

Worth noting that (if what I heard on a YouTube discussion yesterday is correct) that nearing ome million of Israel's Jewish population has upped sticks and left Israel since the current situation began on October 7th of last year.

I've tried to verify this figure but could only get as far as a report in the Israeli Times (sorry if I've got that name wrong - memory issues and all that) reporting that 550,000 had left in the first 6 months of the conflict. On this basis, and given what has transpired since the six month point, it doesn't seem unreasonable to give the figure some credence.

Of a total Jewish population of nearing 8 million, this is no small percentage. Of course we can't say how many will return once the conflict is resolved, but it is something of an irony that Israel was supposedly created in the first place as a safe-haven for the Jewish people, so badly persecuted over the centuries in Europe, culminating in the atrocity of the Holocaust, but now finds itself hemorrhaging people as a result of the dangers they face within their own homeland.

And I'm afraid that it'll likely only get worse.

Many IDF soldiers have been on active duty in Gaza for a year without a break, and now with the crisis extending to include southern Lebanon it doesn't look as if they are going to get much respite. The type of hostilities they are involved in in both places are not those which they are made up to deal with. The usual modus operandi of the Israeli forces is massive air and rocketry bombardment, followed by short mopping up operations. Not grueling hands on contact with an intractable enemy. The threat of mobilisation into the armed forces will see many choose the option of leaving Israel before this happens.

Yet others will suddenly find that their homes are under threat, that their safe enclave is safe no more. They will understand that Netenyahu, far from dealing with the threats against them, has instead led them into a dark place that they would be better off away from. The 60 plus thousand people driven from their homes in the north are not being able to return to them; on the contrary, Hezbollah shows no sign of letting up on its bombardment and the IDF seems unable to stop them from continuing to fire their rockets. They will, in the face of this reality, begin to leave Israel, potentially for good. It was fine to be there when they ran the show - now not so good.

And this, if the conflict is allowed to continue, will quite possibly be Israel's undoing. The Jewish population there has in almost all cases, connections within other countries which they can fall back on, and if the circumstances get too bad they will simply leave for better opportunities elsewhere. And thus could the Zionist project simply wither away by attrition of the population until it is simply unviable. This is a real risk, and one that the leadership must be painfully aware of. That much vaunted biblical connection is big - but not so big. In a secular world of modernity, the taking up of life threatening burdens for religious reasons when good alternative strategies offer themselves.......well, need I say more. The modern generations, Jewish or otherwise, are not like the old ones that existed when the original Zionist settlers first moved to Palestine. The cause of Jewish statehood might seem less important to them than their own survival.

Thus has the Israeli policy of refusal to engage with the Palestinian problem other than to try and crush it been a dubious one. It has led them to a place where, rather than having a solid neighbour that it could (for all their differences) built up ties with and made a collective future, it is threatening their very existence altogether. A sad situation for a people who deserve better.

And I finish with one salient question that I heard posed somewhere during the week. At what point, given that we assert the right of the Israeli people to have a state within the lands that they have occupied for the last hundred years, do we deny the Palestinians the same right on the lands that they have occupied for a thousand?