What Do You Think Today?

[peter]

Kier Stamer seems to be living in some kind of alternative universe when it comes to the future role of the UK in the security of Ukraine post conflict (or even while it is ongoing - no-one, including Stamer himself, seems to be concerned with small details like this).

The UK is hosting some kind of closed meeting with military leaderships from his 'coalition of the willing' (in inverted comas because no-one knows who's actually in it, if it actually exists anywhere except within Kier Stamer's puffed-up with self-importance imagination). We're not being told what is being discussed, but if I was going to take a bet it'd be a consideration of just how collectively weak we are, how far we are not capable of mounting any credible defence either of ourselves, let alone Ukraine.

The popular meme is that our army could not fill Wembley Stadium, let alone match the millions of soldiers it would need to mobilise in order to combat the Russians in any kind of land offensive. It's much worse than that. Wembley seats around 90,000. We can muster at best 50,000 troops ready for active duty, probably closer to 35,000. And of these only a fraction are battle tested. They might perform well in war game simulations, sanitised training exercises simulating the real thing, but in the blood and guts scenarios of real combat conditions against the battle hardened troops of eastern Europe? (And I saw some ridiculous article from some armchair general saying that we could beat the Russians militarily and economically if we put our minds to it. I don't remember the fellows name but I believe it began with a 'c'.)

But as I say, all of these ideas seem to be issuing forth from Kier Stamer rather than having any concrete reality, supported by significant intention from his European counterparts. The truth is they are completely thrown by Donald Trump and his abandonment of the central dogma of European security thinking - that America can be left to sort it out - and in their discombobulation have frankly no idea what to do. So they are tolerating Kier Stamer and his nonsense briefly while they try to get their heads around the situation that their abnigation of their own responsibilities (the defence of their own nations) has placed them in. Only the Italian leader has quietly said (in so many words) of Stamer's plan, it's bollocks.

And meanwhile America seems to be headed in a completely different direction altogether. Donald Trump - or should that be Donald Chump - is taking calls from president Zelensky (he only deserves a small 'p' because he's only a little president) and they are both playing the 'peace has never been closer' game. Both know it's bollocks but Chump can't be seen to be failing, so Zelensky has to play along in order to keep the milk and honey flowing (that's red honey in this case). Putin has made it clear that he's not having any Nato membership forces (peacekeeping or otherwise) in Ukraine and America seems reluctant to grant the air cover that even Stamer says is a precondition for UK or other Nato country troops being placed on the ground. That and the agreement of America providing the 'backstop' guarantee that they will come in and hold our hands if things start to get rough. Like that's going to happen (the holding hands bit - not the getting rough which is a one hundred percent on-the-nose certainty).

So it's all flying off in every direction and there is no continuity or coherence of action or intent: neither in terms the active players on either side of the Atlantic (in terms of what they are doing and saying), nor collectively taking both sides together. Putin must be looking on bemused at what he is seeing. Man, if he has any real territorial intentions in Europe then now is the time to do it, because this lot of headless chickens could not organise a piss-up in a brewery.

Oh, and by the way, Netenyahu has now restarted the ground offensive in Gaza, retaking land he had vacated at the beginning of the now defunct ceasefire. Who knew? (Well - no-one actually, if they were listening to our legacy media. I only found it in a square inch clip on the front of the FT.)

[peter]

I'm in Poland today so it's just going to be a short one; but we managed to sidestep the problems at Heathrow yesterday by flying from a regional airport rather than the UK's main hub.

This morning the press is full of recriminations and I get that - hundreds of thousands will have had their travel plans disrupted, holidays ruined etc.

But some of the criticism seems a trifle harsh to me. Yes, the electrical system should have been kept up to speed and perhaps even a backup generating system in place - but Heathrow is a privately owned, mainly foreign ownership, and they are not going to spring for major refits etc with the future of mass air travel so up for debate (which begs the question as to why another runway has just been agreed by the government, but hey, who wouldn't have expected the UK government to do exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time).

And this new/backup generating system is a bit of a white elephant anyway. There was a fire. Safety concerns demanded that the airport be closed while it was dealt with. This argument that "why was the whole airport closed down for one small fire?" (The Mail) is ridiculous. It wasn't a small fire: it burned for over 10 hours fueled by liquid propellant and electrical meltdown. There were pockets of fire and elevated dangers of it restarting for hours following its main center being gotten under control. Heathrow is a hive of enclosed spaces with minimal exits and areas of ingress and egress. It's a border for Christ's sake. It has to be secure for obvious reasons, but such security comes at a price in terms of safety. Closing it down was absolutely necessary and the right thing to do.

Lots of very pissed people this morning. But lots of very pissed alive people too.

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Rachel Reeves has 10 billion to find in order to fill her fiscal black hole according to the FT this morning.

Her spring statement in a few days time is, they say, going to make for grim listening. The Office for Budgetary Responsibility has downgraded its growth forecast from nearly zero to fuck-all and this has scuppered her entire economic policy. I said it here a few months ago, that when no growth appeared she would be screwed and so it has transpired. She hung everything on getting a surge in growth and then did everything in her power to disincentivise it.

Putting up NI employers contributions to cause them to shrink the workforce, shrinking the departmental budgets across the board sono public money was flowing into the economy, talking down the economy to anyone who would listen including all the foreign investors who might have been prepared to take a punt on the UK economy. Now growth has fizzled out like a wet fart and she is screwed.

Perhaps next time Kier Stamer should actually fact check the CV of the person he is going to entrust the entire fucking British economy to!

[peter]

Really slow news day today (which of course, is good) - but let's have a look anyway.

The Observer at least is prepared to finally acknowledge the truth about a government it has championed from day one - that it is failing all of us right across the board. According to the Jacob Rowntree foundation all of us will be noticeably worse off by 2030 with the poorest suffering a disproportionately large drop in their standards of living.

The reason cited is an acknowledgement of what I posted yesterday, that failure to get the economy growing has meant that the Chancellor's fiscal rules will have to be met by (essentially) returning to austerity. Getting us all to have more money by 2030 was one of Kier Stamer's manifesto pledges, and now like every other pledge he's ever made (no - really) it's turned out to be hogwash.

Who knew.

The Telegraph has a piece, "Prince favours flying foreign visits." It's slightly critical of the habit that Prince William has made (so they say at least) of taking short trips of a day or two to foreign countries, as opposed to the two long trips that Princes of Wales traditionally take each year.

What don't they get? The fellow's wife has had cancer. She's in recovery (or should that be remission). Of course he wants to be close to her while she's undergoing treatment etc. You'd think that the stupid f***'s could work that out for themselves. Or perhaps it's just that this makes a better angle or story for them. Prince remiss in his duty or Prince does the right thing? No contest I'd say. As I said, slow news day.

[peter]

You see, here's the problem.

The Jacob Rowntree Foundation release a report saying that the standard of living and disposable income of people is going to fall by 2030 - and the Chancellor simply denies it. They base their calculations on OBR forecasts and Bank of England statements etc, and she just says, "No!"

She acknowledges that 10,000 civil service jobs are going (the Times says her cuts, in their estimates, will see 50,000 jobs cut) and that government spending is going to be cut by 10 billion at least - but everybody is going to be better off. The economy is going to remain stagnant with no investment or growth to speak of, but we're all going to feel better off. Schools will see free lunches for juniors axed, PE and dance classes removed from free period options and free materials for these periods ended, but education is going from strength to strength.

It's a real problem that you face in real life - that of the impossibility of reasoning with people who simply will not concede to facts put before them - but in a politician it's devastating. We have demonstrable proof that this woman is untrustworthy to an unacceptable degree in a politician, pretty close to the same in respect of her simply using her political career as a launchpad from which to prepare her future employment (Wes Streeting is in this bracket as well) - and yet the media tolerate her obduracy in refusing to be coherent in her economic cloed-spinning about where she is leading us.

So let's be clear: she has a mandate from her bosses in the financial sector (the guys who will employ her in the future) to cut the size of the state. It's the neoliberal wet-dream of a minimal state with the private sector running everything. Her old bosses in the Bank of England must have directed her into the Labour Party in the knowledge that the Tories were going out (and it was therefore good policy to get inside the Labour Party in preparation for their turn at the wheel) and her ability to schmooze her way into the top ranks took it from there (well - that and a bit of imaginative embellishment on her 'previous' here and there). But one thing, and one thing only that is clear is this; that we are all not going to be better off in 2030 as a result of anything she is doing.

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The Pope has been released from hospital and we are informed that while he will be undergoing 2 months recuperating in seclusion he will still be working whilst doing so (how does that work, will someone explain to me).

But (not being funny) one look at the guy yesterday told you all you needed to know.

He was in the car and on that balcony looking for all the world like he was a marionette being worked from behind by brooms inserted into his sleeves. A minute on the balcony waving his hand had him gasping for air. He was staring forward in the car like his eyes were about to pop out of his head.

Sorry to say it, but the guy is dying and should not be being discharged. He should be allowed to remain in isolation until he passes with dignity and compassion. This should be a private time for him, I don't care who or what he is.

Is this just another example of a world that simply cannot accept - will not accept - what is staring it in the face. Like Rachel Reeves above, the Pope is getting better and he'd better get used to it! By 2030 he'll be like a youngster again! Perhaps his doctors or members of the curia around him went to the same school as she did. Perhaps they learned the same 'art of denial of the evidence before your eyes' techniques she adopts there.

What a world people, what a world.

(By the way, the USA and Ukraine are going to agree a peace proposal that Putin will swallow and Benjamin Netanyahu is going to agree to the two-state solution for Palestine as well. It's most certainly going to happen soon - by 2030 at the latest.)

[peter]

Spare a thought for poor Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves as she tries to do the right thing by taking those freebie tickets worth 295 quid, despite really, really not wanting to.

It's to do with security you see. It makes it difficult to go to such events in the normal fashion and there simply isn't a payment structure that allows for payment through the ordinary channels.

Well here's an idea for a way around your dilemma Rachel. How about every time you are forced into taking such an unwelcome gift, you make an equivalent value donation to a charity of the parliamentary standards committee choice, in order to allay the suggestion that (God forbid) you are taking that freebie because, well, it's free.

In fact we could extend the idea to all MPs facing such nasty dilemmas, by having a monthly designated charity with details of amounts and names made public, so we could see the philanthropic and definitely not self-interested tendencies of our representatives at work.

Needless to say, such a system would no doubt be unworkable - most probably for security reasons - so I won't expect it to be instituted any time soon. But politicians might like to consider it when they have their annual meet at the UK-Swiss Parliamentary Ski Weekend (the 94th one just having passed, or something similar) at which free ski passes and complementary bashes abound.

It's a hard life representing the people you know. Who'd want it!



The talks between US and Russian negotiators in Saudi Arabia don't seem to be featuring much in the news today and that has to be down to their frankly being a waste of time.

This is the Western media's go to policy when something they have been making a fanfare about falls like a pound store squib in a cut-price fireworks do. Keep schtum and pretend that all of that hullabaloo you made never happened.

Because it's not like the people actually remember anything you have printed or squawked about in the days gone by. They're much too stupid for that. So those going-nowhere peace talks - "what...did we say that?". Or Stamer's blowhard plans for strutting around playing the big man? Piss and wind dear boy; piss and wind. Better forget all about them. Ukrainian war? Is that old thing still going on? Who'd have thought it.

Anyway, don't look at that....look at this instead.

[peter]

There's a lot going on today: Rachel Reeves' decision to cut free school meals and other educational services makes you wonder (as one commentator observed) why we bothered to vote in a Labour Party that is no different to the Conservative Party they replaced. Good news from Russia-Ukraine in respect of the agreement to halt Black Sea hostilities and to implement the 30 day moratorium on energy infrastructure attacks (though more as sops to Donald Trump than as any true beginning of a road towards peace.

But by far the most important news is needless to say, that which not a single newspaper or bulletin will be mentioning.

That is of course the effective beginning of the Israeli endgame in terms of the removal of the Palestinian people from Gaza.

With the deliberate scuppering of the three phase peace agreement by Israel and their renewed onslaught on the occupants, there is a consensus across non-legacy media sources that this is effectively the end of the Gazan Palestinians. That those who do not flee will be killed, and it will be done in front of the eyes of the World via the agency of the Western support that is allowing it to happen.

As I say, this is the agreed opinion of commentators such as Owen Jones, Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate, Chris Hedges of the Chris Hedges Report, all of whom describe a chilling picture of events proceeding at pace towards a 'final solution' for the Strip inhabitants. The bombing of hospitals, the renewed advance of troops into the territory and the complete cessation of aid - these things alongside the incessant driving of the population from hither to thither, this way and that, from bombing to gunfire, starvation to disease, with neither let-up nor allowance for them to settle and draw breath.....leave or die, leave or die, leave or die.

This is being done before the eyes of our complicit leaderships, before the eyes of our uncommenting media, before the eyes of our silent Church hierarchies and most significantly for the future, before the eyes of a stunned and uncomprehending world. A world in which only the ragtag Houthis of Yemen are prepared to lift a finger in their defence.

It is indeed truly incomprehensible and there will, as Owen Jones absolutely correctly pointed out, be a future price to pay for it. Western hegemony of this world is effectively over, when we are seen to support, both materially and ideologically, such an atrocity.

The hospitals that in the beginning as Israeli spokesman assured us were not being deliberately targeted, are now blown skyward in single huge detonations with no reportage in the legacy media whatsoever. An Irish surgeon reports that the average age of the children dying on a daily basis in his non-functioning field hospital is 9 years old - carnage heaped on the young, the old and the middle aged alike. You are Palestinian. You are animal. You Die.

This morning's Guardian shows a picture of Hamdan Ballal - Oscar winning Palestinian film director - being released from Israeli detention following a beating administered by Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Yes that's right - detained by the Israeli's for being beaten by settlers.....and if he wasn't an Oscar winner then he wouldn't be anywhere near a front page, Guardian or otherwise.

I haven't even looked yet, but if this is not the single lip-service reference to the Palestinian genocide on any front page, then I'm a Dutchman.

Nope - absolutely correct in every detail Peter: you must be some kind of prescient savant or something.

But this is a guilt that every single one of us is responsible for. Every person out there, you and me and our neighbours, the people we work with and our families - every one of us is guilty. We know it is happening and we are doing nothing. And in doing nothing we facilitate it. If our neighbour was beating his wife, assaulting his child, killing his dog, we would step in, pick up the phone, remonstrate with him over the fence. If we didn't - ifwe turned our backs, then the world would rightly condemn us for our inaction.

We stand condemned for that same inactivity a hundred times over in our allowance of what is happening in Gaza. Don't pretend you know nothing about it, that it is nothing to do with you. By your inaction, by my inaction we facilitate it, we condone it, we make it possible. If every one of us was standing in parliament square on the green, if we were staying at home and foregoing a days wages in protest, if we were writing to our MPs and lobbying our representatives, this would not be happening. But we are not and so it goes on. Our brute indifference to the suffering of others is beyond description and it should be being rammed down our throats every minute of every single day until we are finally motivated to do something about it.

But instead we pretend, our media pretends, it isn't happening. Nothing to see here because it's behind us, over there beyond our vision. Shame on each and every one of us.

No greater mistake was ever made than by he who because he could only do a little, did nothing.

[peter]

No wonder Zelensky is pissed.

Today's Telegraph reveals that the Trump 'Minerals Deal' is in fact a rapacious grab of virtually everything Ukraine has of any value. Rar from being limited to the country's rare earth metals, it includes around half the country's oil and gas reserves, huge chunks of infrastructure and nearly all the aforementioned metals. It is essentially a reparations agreement of draconian severity the like of which one commentator said he'd never previously encountered. "It's an expropriation document", the paper reports Alan Riley, an expert law from the Atlantic Council, as saying. "There are no guarantees, no defence clauses, the US puts up nothing. The Americans can walk away, the Ukrainians can't. I've never seen anything like it before.

Such is the Trumpian idea of getting peace for Ukraine. Essentially making it pay for it's having been used as a pawn by the West to fight it's proxy war with Russia. Because it had the temerity to loose, the USA now switches sides, and carves up the carcass with Russia. The latter gets the land, the former the assets and Ukraine gets to foot the bill in blood, sovereignty and wealth.

This is the new America we are dealing with. The return of great power politics and (as Av pointed out to me many posts ago) the strong taking what they want from the weak and dividing it up amongst themselves to their own best interest. Greenland, Panama, Canada, now Ukraine - the sky's the limit. It's the USA, Russia and China first, the rest nowhere.

This is where hitching their future to the West has brought Ukraine. They voted in Yanukovych in 2010 but a Western fomented coup saw him ousted from power and from that moment the country's fate was sealed. To be America's enemy is dangerous; to be its friend is fatal. So said American statesman Henry Kissinger and President Zelensky is now learning the truth of this statement big time. It was fatal of him to listen to the poisonous advice of Boris Johnson in March 2022, the Wormtoung to Biden's Saruman, when the framework for a peace was within reach, but the blonde clown said not to take it. A million deaths later the clown is no longer so funny.

The subject of which is an interesting diversion in itself.

A few days ago Boris Johnson gave an interview in which he said that it was not the Russians that stood in the way of peace in 2022 (as has been suggested by some muddiers of the waters commentating on the subject; other muddiers suggest that "to have taken the deal would have been disastrous for Ukraine" - again total horse-shit).

On the contrary, said Johnson, it was the far-right elements within the Ukrainian military that would not have accepted the deal, and by extension made it impossible for Zelensky to do so.

This is of course a lie. You can tell it is because Johnson is saying it. (That was supposed to be a joke, but it fell flat because in Johnson's case it is so very nearly really the case, and everyone knows it.) No, whatever the truth of this, Johnson was right behind those far-right elements and had visited them on the field of battle (well - some distance from the front, naturally), supporting their thirst for battle against Russia completely. He, like them, had no desire to see peace break out under any circumstances.

But now, with the war lost and a million plus dead, suddenly he's thinking of his legacy. If he's not careful, he's going to go down in the history books as a General Haigh - a person responsible for death on an industrial scale. Suddenly a bit of rewriting of history is required. So suddenly it becomes the fault of those far-right guys - not me you understand. Nothing to do with me.

But unfortunately for Boris, this has already been established. Because Victoria Newland has already given the reason why the Istanbul communique was rejected by Zelensky. Because its acceptance would have prevented the USA from being able to place its military hardware inside Ukraine as it so desperately desired to do. Ukrainian neutrality would have precluded this. Everything American foreign policy had been working towards for three decades would have gone up in smoke and this could not be allowed to happen. So Johnson was dispatched to put the kibosh on it.

So a mere 3 years down the line we have 3 putative explanations as to why the war was not ended in 2022.

1. That for Ukraine to have accepted the deal would have been disastrous for their future, because their neutrality would give them no protection from future Russian aggression.

2. That far-right elements in the Ukrainian military would not have accepted the deal and would have refused to stop fighting.

3. That to have accepted the deal would have been to undermine American foreign policy objectives in respect of ring-fencing Russia behind its own borders and being in a position to deliver a decisive blow against it at need in some future conflict. (Either aggressively or as a disincentive to any expansionist ideas that the Russians might have had.)

In respect of point 1, yes neutrality would have placed Ukraine at a disadvantage militarily - but the last 3 years have demonstrated that they are already at a military disadvantage, and as Russia were never going to accept the country joining Nato, then they were always going to remain so anyway. And as for a Russian design to take over Ukraine and absorb it into Russia, contrary to what we are told, there is no evidence that they would have wanted to do this. The trouble in Donetsk and Luhansk was primarily due to ethnic Russians not being able to express their own ethnicity, speak and teach their own language and generally be treated like second class citizens. This was the direction in which the government of Ukraine was going, led by the far-right politicians within it - the reason Putin speaks now of 'denazification' of Ukraine - and the Ukrainian-Russians were not going to accept it. Hence the civil war in the east and ultimately Russia's stepping in to aid their own brothers and sisters.

And as a further debunking of the idea that neutrality represents a danger if you are close to Russia, one only has to look at the example of Finland. Neutrality has served them exceptionally well, despite bordering Russia and being in a position to be easily annexed. There is simply no evidence that the Russians have any interest in western expansion (they already have more territory than they know what to do with) and the Finish people definitely don't live in fear of it. They've topped the index of being the happiest, most secure nation on earth for a number of years, and there's no sign of this changing.

Regarding point 2, this is an argument that I cannot speak much about. I simply don't know enough about how much control Zelensky could have exercised on his own army at that point (now, a million deaths later, that control will be markedly reduced - the Asov's etc will not voluntarily give up the struggle they have sacrificed so much for in order to keep it alive ....but in 2022 - who can say?

But as a reason for the Istanbul communique failing to be adopted, one has to set it against the words of Newland (ie that of point 3). Johnson has a clear and obvious reason for distancing himself from the failure of the agreement and this must be set against Newland's account and the two weighed against each other. And all of the evidence suggests that had the Americans decided that the agreement was acceptable, it would have gone through. Yes, there might have been kickback from the militias, but ultimately without the support of the American weaponry, intelligence and money, it would have been a chicken that wouldn't fight.

But do you see the problem here. We are talking about events that happened a mere 3 years ago. And yet we are unable to say with certainty why a certain thing happened and another did not. Imagine if you were trying to sort it out 200 years down the line and write up an accurate history of the facts. You'd be fighting a loosing battle from the start.

But choose whatever the truth of it is, the value of the decision of Ukrainian leaderships to hang their futures on the West is beginning to look very sketchy indeed; they are (as eastern slavic peoples) far closer to the Russians already in terms of ethnicity and their post Soviet history hasn't exactly been a barrel of success for the people themselves. And as for the West - to have actively worked against a peace settlement between Ukraine and Russia - well that was unforgivable from any angle, by any standards. Now Ukraine is dead in the water, but I fear an end to the killing is a long way off as yet.

[peter]

Face Recognition Watch: Another 'positive spin' story on the use of facial recognition to apprehend a miscreant, as the BBC reports on a whiskey manufacturing scammer who has had his collar felt as a result of the tech.

The same tech that a few short years ago the Chinese state was being upbraided for using, as evidence of its being a repressive society bent on controlling its population by the use of such invasive technology.

Of course when we use it, we do so in a completely different way - no dystopian undercurrent here thank you - and the continuous drip, drip of these stories has nothing to do with any preparation, any 'softening up' of the public, for the wider rollout of its use by the state, which I'd bet a pound to a penny is coming.

No - nothing like that. Sorry I mentioned it.

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I think my post of yesterday leads to a very important point that needs addressing;

America's treatment of Ukraine - using it to fight a proxy war in pursuit of pushing forward its (America's) foreign policy regarding Russia (that of containing by encirclement) - and its throwing of it to the wolves when it did not win that war, holds a salutory warning for us all: America cannot be trusted with the defence of Europe or any other nation further than its own interests run.

This is receiving especial attention now that Trump is in the Oval Office because he chooses not to hide the fact, but in reality it has ever been the case.

Trump is covering his tracks by making the accusations that "Europe is not holding up its own end of the bargain" and that "America is being taken for a sucker", but the truth is that this has always been America's own choice. It wanted to be the 'world policeman', simply to push its own agenda of unrestricted capitalism on the world, and willingly took up the role as 'defender of the world' in pursuit of this end. By establishment of itself in every corner of the globe, both militarily and politically, it created the markets and the consumerist societies that now dominate the world. And we all bought into it. We abrogated our own responsibilities to look to our own defences, because the offer of doing so was available. And in doing so we all of us, each nation of itself, became "the 51st State".

And that's all we are. We (the UK in particular) have no independent existence other than as an extension of American interest in Europe. We are a poodle (to employ that overused similie), and a toothless one at that. It's our own fault, and now the fatal risk of that position is brought home to us in a rude awakening. America is not our friend: it is our owner. If the much vaunted special relationship exists, it is the relationship between a slave and his master. We retain our master's goodwill only as long as we do exactly as we are told, and ape, minstrel like, its actions and policies in crude parody of our smug overlord. Like a monkey in a suit, we enact out our leashed existence in crude imitation of our controllers, hoping to retain favour and go unpunished, while receiving, greasy hand outstretched, whatever titbits it throws our way.

And so yes, I agree with Kier Stamer that we must look to ourselves to defend our country. Yes, defence spending must be increased. But not to do as he would seek, in order to project our (now pathetic) power into the realms of other countries interests. Those days are gone and good riddance to them. But rather to secure our own borders against aggression or invasion. No more, no less. Not to interfere in the business of others, but to ensure our own security and right of self determination, while we seek our new place, post empire, amongst our neighbours as their equal.

This is what we should have been doing since the end of WW2. Dean Acheson once said, " Great Britain has lost an Empire but has not yet found a role," and it remains absolutely true. We have tagged ourselves onto the American coat-tails and gone along for the ride. And in doing so we have surrendered our own identity as a nation. Time, now that the chips are down, to remedy that. We need to get our priorities in order. Russia is first and foremost - and we need to get this - no threat to us. No more than America is itself. Or China. But as with all countries, defence is a pragmatic necessity and one where (beyond a lower limit) less is more. We are uniquely gifted with a natural defence in our island status. Little more need be done than to defend those shores against invasion and again our maritime heritage serves us well (alongside our air defences). We have the technical expertise to attend to our own defence and it is to our own expertise that we should look in pursuit of this.

I have no idea what our future should look like, but I do know that we should be in control of it. Not America. Not Russia. Not China. We should be like a Jack Russell Terrier: small but with a nasty bite if provoked. To bring this about in this suddenly new world that is thrust upon us - and it is a new world.....the old one isn't coming back - is Kier Stamer's responsibility. Forget Europe and grandiose plans of unified defence policies etc: this is not our way. Certainly they are our friends, but they must also now look to themselves as must we.

And perhaps, who knows, in a generation or two, we might find somewhere deep within us, a remnant of what we all once knew but somewhere we lost along the way, that it's good to be British, that we are (in our own unique way) exceptional, that we can stand alone in the world on our own terms. In other words that we do have an independent future built upon our own considerable resources.

[peter]

God, it just goes from bad to worse.

The extent to which our administrations in the UK have been complicit in the Gazan genocide is barely understood by the people of this country, if the words of journalist Matt Kennard, co-founder of the alternative media site Declassified-UK, are to be believed.

He says the operation against Gaza must be soon as a tripartite affair, with the Americans supplying the hardware, the British the intelligence, and the Israeli's the execution. As such he says, we share not just a tangential responsibility for the genocide, but an equal and central role in the crime.

He bases his accusation on research that he has personally carried out, showing that United Kingdom RAF planes have flown upwards of 46 percent of all information gathering sorties over Gaza - providing intel without which much of the activity of the IDF within the Strip would not have been possible - using aircraft based at the RAF Akrotiri airbase in Cyprus.

This airbase, one of two based on the island held in perpetual sovereignty by the UK as a throwback to their colonial occupation of Cyprus, is also a site from which huge numbers of large transportation aircraft have been flown to Israel, delivering arms, personnel and who knows what. The possibility exists, says Kennard, that UK special forces personnel have themselves been on the ground in Gaza, if not almost certainly within Israel itself. Needless to say the UK administration chooses not to respond to questions (even those put forward in the House) requiring answers on this topic.

Kennard cites the case of the three British aid workers killed in Gaza in a targeted missile strike on a car delivering aid, and which investigations of air-traffic routes have shown that UK airforce planes were in the sky's over Gaza mere minutes before the strike was made. It thus remains possible that we supplied the very information that was used to kill our own people in Gaza - but again the government has chosen not to shed any light on what this plane was doing, and what information it might or might not have supplied to Israel that might be pertinent to the deaths of these British citizens.

Our intimate complicity in the genocide must, says Kennard, place our politicians - think Sunak and Stamer, Lammy and Schapps - in the frame for arraignment before the ICC on criminal charges, alongside Netenyahu and Ben Gvir, but he recognises the unlikelihood of this happening. The ICC has traditionally only been used as a vehicle against individuals not aligned to Western interests, and Netenyahu and Ben Gvir are the first ever Western aligned politicians ever to have warrants issued against them.

Matt Kennard can be seen in conversation with Aaron Bastani in a Novara Media post on YouTube entitled 'It's Worse than you Think: How the deep state actually works'. It's a long video - over two and a half hours - but it will leave you shocked and reeling, and questioning everything you ever thought you knew about the country we live in.

(As an aside, Kennard draws attention to the fact that since Kier Stamer announced his 13 billion pounds cash injection for defence a few short weeks ago, BAE Systems, the UK's largest defence contractor, has seen its share value increase by 28 percent. Little doubt there who expects to be the beneficiary of much of that cash. Proof positive to the dead and dying soldiers on the fields of some future conflict that it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good.)

-----0-----

Oh dear me!

The 'rift in the lute' at the top of Prince Harry's charity to support African kids with HIV has turned toxic this morning, following a pre-recorded interview between its Chairman Dr Sophie Chanduaka and Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips, in which she brands the Prince guilty of bullying on a mass scale and says that the Sussex's brand is "toxic".

The tiff, which saw Harry actually resign his patronage of the charity a week ago, appears to have blown up following a charity polo event (not darts you note - polo) at which Harry, stepping forward to recieve the winning trophy (who else) was accompanied by Chanduaka herself. Meghan apparently took exception to this and stepped in to draw the woman away, which being noted by the attendant press, caused some less than complementary coverage in the papers the following day.

Prince Harry apparently approached Dr Chanduaka and requested that she step in and offer support to Megan, to draw away some of the criticism as it were, but she declined to do so, saying that she did not want the charity to become just another arm of the Sussex PR machine. The breakdown had apparently widened following this, to the point where Harry and the charity's other co-founder Prince Seiso of Lesotho resigned, and now the Chairwoman has decided to give this interview to give her side of the story.

Needless to say the Sunday press are all over this story like a rash, reveling in the 'wicked Megan' elements of it, the unspoken suggestion of jealousy (Chanduaka is a rather attractive lady), and the subsequent involvement of Harry himself and her accusations of bullying etc. The whole thing is a confection of scandal that forms a lovely bit of light relief from the heavy politics and conflict news we have been awash in for so long.

I hold myself up as guilty for feeling the relief of writing about something else for a moment, but hey, I'm human too. Fuck it: I'm going to go try find something else funny to finish with.

-----0-----

Nothing there so you'll have to make do with this;

What's got 86 teeth and holds back a monster?

My zipper.

[peter]

I see Trump is "getting angry" with Putin/Russia and is threatening to levy 25 to 50 percent tarrifs on any country buying Russian oil or gas as a means of showing it.

The truth is that his attempts at forcing a ceasefire are all over the place and are going nowhere. He is starting to look like a blowhard in his claims that he could "stop the war" (in 24 hours wasn't it) and the truth is he hasn't got a frikkin idea.

His Saudi negotiated partial ceasefires are in chaos - no-one knows if the energy one has started, not started, what it includes and what it doesn't (certainly neither Ukraine nor Russia agree on this) and the Black Sea one is dependent upon a lifting of sanctions on Russia that they say must be done in advance of its starting and the West say must wait until after it commences. (nb. The West promised to lift sanctions as part of the Minsk agreements and then failed to do so; Russia doesn't intend to get burned again.)

Put on top of this the fundamental difference in what each side (and I'm talking the USA and Russia here) side wants. America expects Russia to stop fighting, following which the details of how a peace framework can be discussed (ie, fair to say that for domestic reasons, Trump wants to be able to point to a stopping of the killing, where Russia, being on the front foot in the war, are not so bothered by this). Russia on the other hand wants the details of the lasting peace laid out before it will agree to a ceasefire. This is the fundamental split in desires on getting even a peace process going, let alone the actual differences between the desires of Russia and Ukraine that would have to be settled for any durable peace framework to stand a chance of sticking.

Moscow has suggested that the United Nations should establish an interim government in which elections of a new leadership could be carried out, and this seems to have frustrated Trump and led to his latest outburst (he also threatened to take Greenland by force and to bomb Iran in the same telephone interview, so it remains possible his own dementia problems could be kicking in - very dangerous I'd say).

But the truth is that Trump and his team are out of their depth. This shuttle diplomacy with everything having to be done yesterday isn't going to work. The whole situation is way to complicated to settle on the back of an envelope and it's beginning to show. A properly organised framework of discussions at a third party neutral zone, and utilising experienced negotiators working slowly towards an agreed upon endpoint needs to be established. This would take time and effort. Steve Witkoff, the US envoy to the Middle East who has been drafted in to lead the Russian talks as well, might have been a good deal maker in business, but here he's floundering. And it's starting to make Trump look stupid (he is) and out of his depth (ditto). And so the orange Chump is getting angry. And like any thwarted child he's lashing out. Again - very dangerous.

So what's going to happen?

Well, not a ceasefire that's a given. Trump has very little leverage with Moscow and the oil sanctions represent about the limits of it. Would he be able to stop third party countries from buying Russian oil and gas on the back of them? That depends on the individual calculations they make about the relative costs of the tarrifs as opposed to the benefits of buying cheap oil and gas from Russia. But such evidence as we have - clues from what Putin has said and known Russian troop movements etc - is that now winter is ending Russia is readying itself for what it thinks might be a final decisive push. If it can reach the Dnipro in the center of its front line position it is effectively in the middle of the Ukrainian heartlands. At this point it is essentially game over and the post war process can be begun. This kind of catastrophic situation could bring about a more concerted and professional attempt at reaching a diplomatic solution, but no-one could pretend that it would be good for Ukraine.

But there are other considerations.

Putin, despite what we are being led to believe, operates under constraints of his own. Domestically he's been accused of not going hardball enough on Ukraine and letting them off too easily. There is actually some truth in this. In the early war, he didn't use the 'blitzkreig' tactics he could have to reduce the Ukrainian morale, and evidence is that he's had much greater numbers of soldiery trained and held in reserve than he has hitherto employed. This reticence on his part to go 'all in' has attracted significant criticism from his political rivals and contrary to western media and political output suggestions, he's actually got very little domestic wiggle-room to play with. His political capital built up over 25 years is extensive, but not inexhaustible. On the Russian scale of things he's considered a moderate, and far from being the rabid anti-Western almost Hitler like character that our media has painted him as, he's actually a politician who has had significant Western leanings over the years in comparison to what is coming behind him. This makes Zelensky's recent suggestion that all Ukraine has to do is hold out until Putin dies a nonsense. Putin is as good as it gets in terms of Russian leaderships and all the evidence suggests that what will come behind him will be far worse.

And even Putin seems to be indicating that he's reached the end of his tether with the West. Russia has been screwed over repeatedly by the West since the fall of the Soviet Union, and now, following the Ukrainian debacle, the indications are that going forward, Russia will concentrate more on its relationship with China and the rest of the Brics nations, and leave the USA and Europe to its own devices.

Such are the chances we have squandered, such are the opportunities we have lost in our disastrous policy of treating the post Soviet Russia as an enemy rather than a friend to be nurtured and helped (ala Germany after WW2) into engagement with the modern world.

[peter]

In Donald Trump's so called 'liberation day' antics tomorrow, it seems unlikely that the UK is going to be able to avoid tarrifs as had been hoped by Stamer and his inner circle of ministers.

In this morning's press, acknowledgement is given by 'Number 10' that it is likely that we will not escape the worst of the various hits, calculated by the OBR to be worth about 0.6 of a percent of GDP in the forthcoming year (largely as a result of cheap goods previously destined for America flowing into the country).

And the putative reason for the failure of Stamer's desperate diplomatic efforts to achieve exemption for the UK - concerns in the UK about the state of free speech within the UK.

Now I'd suggest that the USA has problems of its own in this area - think on the recent 'kidnapping' of a green-card carrying student of the streets by a group of masked men who turned out to be state security service personnel. The girl who had attended a pro-Palestinian rally and possibly spoken thereat, was snapped off the street and for so doing and this absolutely runs in contravention of the first ammendment. To my knowledge, no charges have been issued against the Turkish doctoral student, but it doesn't bode well that it happened at all.

But we're not talking about America, were talking about here, and I'm interested (as I would be) about this because I try to exercise my right to free speech on these pages every day. So what is the state of play?

Well, much of the American concern about free speech restrictions in the UK seem to center around the issues of abortion and the far-right.

Clearly in the USA there has been a move away from the universal availability of abortion to women in recent times. This has resulted I'd guess in large part as a result of significant pressure from the Christian right, who are a powerful force both in American society and American politics itself. I don't remember the exact details, but the overturning of the Roe vs Wade verdict over a year or so ago meant that the right of women to access abortion nationally was no longer federally protected, leaving the decision on abortion laws available to individual states to make as they each saw fit.

In the UK abortion is legal up to 23 weeks and 6 days following conception, and while this is the case across the whole United Kingdom, there is still a fairly significant presence in society of individuals who are not in favour of it. In order to prevent women who are attending abortion clinics from having to face haranguing as they enter for their procedures, an exclusion zone of 150 meters operates around such clinics within which it is forbidden to carry out demonstrations or other anti-abortion activities.

This seems to be a red-line which the Trump administration will not tolerate and to this effect they have taken up the case of a certain Ms Tossici-Bolt, who earlier last month was charged with infringement of a Public Protection Spaces Order, when she stood outside an abortion clinic holding a sign reading Here to Talk.

In fairness, it seems a bit draconian to have charged her if this was the limit of her transgression, but I understand that women going in for such terminations must absolutely not be subjected to harassment at this no doubt very traumatic point in their lives, and this woman knew what the law was and what she was doing. Nevertheless the American administration has seen fit to involve, or at least aquaint itself with the case, and last month an official from the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour met Ms Tossici-Bolt to discuss her situation.

Was this censorship, or was it a justified restriction brought in for the protection of women accessing a fundamental right under British law? You decide.

Next we come to the case of six young Quakers at a meeting hall, who were arrested following a raid by 20 Metropolitan Police officers who forced their way into the gathering. The youngsters, members of a Quaker youth group called Youth Demand, had met to discuss protest tactics in relation to two areas of which they felt concern, namely the Israeli activity in Gaza that has resulted in the deaths of upwards of 50,000 men, women and children, and the ongoing climate crisis, the consequences for the future of which, we are all very aware.

The Quakers have a rich tradition of nonviolent protest and never before has a raid and arrests been carried out on one of their meeting halls. So this is very definitely a worrying sign, that the police feel sufficiently empowered to raid such a known grouping for nonviolent activity, and snatch people up on the charge of preventing the intention to cause an affray. I mean, how do they know what the intention of these kids (all girls by the way) was? Protest is legal in this country. They are allowed to hold such a meeting to organise their protesting activities. So the fact that the police feel sufficiently empowered to 'jump the gun' as it were, to put the cart before the horse and simply assume a criminal level protest was in planning, is indeed worrying.

And then you come to the very tight laws that were introduced by Suella Braverman as Home Secretary - laws placing very strict limits on when and where protests can be mounted, and the permissions that must be obtained before such protests can legally take place. These laws have already been used to great effect in for example, limiting where the pro-Palestinian marches can take place, the routes that can be followed. They can't for example go anywhere near a synagogue, I mean within hundreds of yards, despite the fact that not a single synagogue has been defaced or a single Jewish worshipper harangued in the entirety of the 15 months of protests. The breaking of this exclusion distance was in fact, the reason that Jeremy Corbyn and others were arrested at a recent pro Palestinian rally while attempting to lay bouquets of flowers remembering the Palestinian dead outside the BBC building in London. The extension to the Public Order Act carried out by Braverman has proven very useful indeed in curtailing the right to protest in the UK and protest is of course an important aspect of free speech.

And lastly we come to the post Southport riots.

I'm not going to get into the violent scenes of anarchy on the streets we saw during the aftermath of the killing of the Southport children: it was chilling and disgusting to watch. But the application of the laws went far beyond just apprehension and charging of those involved in the disturbances. In this case we saw people given custodial sentences for postings they had made online. Often very unpleasant postings and often completely untrue - but some not so much. Some far more ambiguous in their interpretation given information that came latterly to light. Some were postings that people had made in intemperate fashion in the heat of the moment, but for which they were made to pay harsh penalties.

Now some would say that freedom of speech should have no limits. That sticks and stones can never hurt me etc. This is nonsense. Words matter and to incite hatred and violence against other people is and should always be an offence. But the exercising of judgement as to how and when these laws are applied must be made on the basis of individual cases. The development of one-size-fits-all laws to cover this will always result in injustices being commited. The moment political pressure is applied to instruct or influence such decisions we are in trouble. The use of the law as a means of frightening people away from execution of a fundamental right is the beginning of a slippery slope we all know where the end point of which is.

So is free speech at risk in the UK? Elon Musk clearly believes so - but only when it effects the far-right individuals who he has a liking for are involved. The Tommy Robinson's and Tate brothers fall very definitely under his arguments that free speech is under threat. Those who spout hate towards Muslims, women, gays or trans people are it seems, free to speak as viciously and violently as they will. People like the six Quaker girls, not so much.

But I don't know. I very definitely stay away from some subjects and I am aware of the dangers that somehow seem much more significant than when I started this many years ago. But I'm old enough to not worry about it too much. As for the people I meet on a day to day basis - they don't seem concerned. But then, they don't seem concerned about anything really, so I wonder, why should I bother.

Hmmph.

[peter]

I recently spent four days in Krakow, the city in north east Poland made notorious in Stephen Spielberg's film Schindler's List, and the closest Polish city to the awful concentration camps of Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Mrs P and I spent time walking in this beautiful city and taking in the sights, and one of the most gratifying things to witness was the thriving Jewish quarter of Kazimierz in which the KrakowJews have firmly reestablished themselves following the awful events of the Holocaust, and are now a vibrant and inimitable part of the city's heritage.

We were fortunate enough to be there on a Saturday - the Jewish Sabbath - and it was a thing of beauty to see the population all turned out in their finery, debouching from the Synagogues and congregating in the cobbled streets. During our walk (from the Schindler factory south of the Vistula back to the Old City centered on Glowny Square) we passed through the Jewish ghettos A and B, and it was chilling to imagine those boots and vehicles plowing through the very streets and alleyways where we were walking. At one point we passed through the poignant display of Plac Bohaterow Getta, a square in which 70 different sized metal chairs stand - representing the people who died on the day the ghettos were cleared, men, women and children - in permanent memory of the lost. 70 chairs, each representative of 1000 people, snuffed out and disappeared from the pages of history as a result of the vision of one madman from history, people whose poor luck it was to coincide with this degenerate human and suffer the consequences of a nation's execution of his tyrannical plan.

One can but hope that in some fiery hell, the madman twists in everlasting agony and sees, watching upwards, the failure of his diabolical vision, written in the joy and fullness of life palpably visible on the streets of Kazimierz.

As an aside, we didn't visit Auschwitz - not because we didn't try {although I had grave misgivings about doing so}, but rather because the day we had available was fully booked and so the decision was effectively made for us. I take it as fate deciding for me and am not unhappy thereby. I am very sensitive to things - I already know via extensive reading what happened there and I am genuinely not sure that visiting would have added to this. I'd either have to have closed myself off from it (which I would not have wanted to do) or let it run riot inside me,to potentially harmful effect. All in all I think fate made a better decision on this than I would have. As it was, I placed my hands on the famous metal doors of the DEF factory, which was to provide sanctuary for so many Jews, enabling them to survive the war and see the Holocaust fail. This beacon of hope is the memory I take from Krakow, and I think it serves me better than a visit into the maw of hell ever could have done.

Which makes it all the more tragic for me to see what is happening in Gaza.

How could it be that people descended from those who survived (or perhaps didn't) this outrage to the very idea of being human, could be party to what is happening there? The actions of Benjamin Netenyahu and the IDF, supported and enabled by the other two legs of this tripartite stool, America and Great Britain, are beyond belief given the history of his people, and must never, never, never be seen as anything other than an aberration of history, brought about by a fanatical Zionism that has nothing to do with the Jewish people.

That we even know about what is going on, we have no cause to thank our own media ot government for, but has almost entirely depended upon the brave journalism of a very few individuals of which no small number are themselves Jewish and for whom the content of what they are reporting must be devastating to themselves (both personally and professionally) as they try to swim in the tide of the Israeli propoganda they fight against.

There are too many to list here in full, but I'd like to especially thank Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate for their resolute shining of a light on the darkest of places that the last 18 months have seen. Also my thanks to Norman Finklestein and Ilan Pappe for providing the historical background to the October 7th attack, without which nothing that has subsequently happened can be understood. Also gratitude and respect to Stephen Kapos, Holocaust survivor who has tirelessly been out on the front lines of the pro-Palestinian protests, despite his age and infirmity, shouting that what is happening in Gaza is an affront to the memory of the dead, both of the Holocaust and of the numerous pogroms and killing sprees that the Jews have suffered down through history. He speaks more loudly and clearly than anyone, that what is happening has nothing to do with the Jewish people, but is entirely an Israeli phenomenon for which at some point, the perpetrators will have to be held accountable.

To these guys I doff my cap and hope that one day I might do something one hundredth as valuable for the people of this world, as you guys get up and do every day.

[peter]

On April 1st 2024 Penryn born James Henderson was killed in Gaza as he assisted in the delivery of aid to its beleaguered occupants.

One of seven non-Palestinian aid workers killed that day in an Israeli missile strike, Henderson - an ex-marine, was there in an advisory capacity in respect of security. The Israeli government has apologised for the deaths, acknowledging a "grave mistake" on their part - but doubts remain over this explanation, especially given that World Central Kitchen who were making the delivery has insisted that they had notified the Israeli forces of the time and route that the convoy would take on (if I have it correct from memory) two separate occasions prior to the actual delivery being sent out.

This week, one year on, on my local tv news roundup, we saw a report from the opening in Penryn on the anniversary of James' death, od a boxing and gym academy, for use by the youth of the region.

His parents were there as was his fiance at the time of his death. Still clearly traumatised by their loss, they nevertheless gave accounts of how the news had broken upon them, and their reactions at the time. They were immensely proud of James and the work he'd been doing and had spent the intervening year raising the finance for the academy and getting it prepared for its opening. The report was moving to see and being from my own particular region, especially poignant in the light of what I'm now going to relate.

Because earlier this very week, I'd sat and listened to Matt Kennard relate how the UK Airforce had flown some 46 percent of the information gathering sorties over Gaza - sorties without which the very kinds of strike which killed James Henderson would not be possible.

It gets worse.

Because the flight path records show (said Kennard) that a UK reconnaissance flight over Gaza was in motion in the minutes before the strike on Henderson's convoy was made. Kennard's Declassified-UK had made a freedom of information request to the Ministry of Defence for details as to what information was provided to Israel gathered on that sortie, but they declined to provide it on the basis of not revealing operational details on the activities of assets involved in active situations.

Needless to say, none of this was mentioned in the report on the opening of the gymnasium and in fairness neither perhaps would you expect it to be. But if our services were responsible in part for the deaths of these aid workers then their families have a right to know. No money could ever repay what they have lost, but some official recognition of the role we are playing in Gaza, some honesty in standing before the country and accounting for our actions is the least they could expect. It's the least we could all expect.

-----0-----

Donald Chump has said that he is "pissed off" with Vladimir Putin because the latter won't speak to President Zelensky of Ukraine.

What doesn't he get? Zelensky himself passed a law two plus years ago, making it illegal for any Ukrainian official, himself included, to speak to the Russian government on any subject pertaining to the war (and quite possibly on any subject at all for all I know). This means if Putin himself picked up the phone to speak with Zelensky, Zelensky could not in law speak to him.

Further to this, from the moment Zelensky cancelled the Ukrainian elections, Russia has considered his administration an illegal one. What, asks Putin, is the point of making agreements with an administration that will likely be history the moment the war is ended. What is to say that a new administration would honour these agreements - the whole thing could be just a huge waste of time. Putin wants a newly elected government, or even a temporary UN administration to oversee any negotiations.

Trump seems to understand none of this. He is clearly not being briefed well on his foreign policy interventions - is making his interjections on incomplete or poorly understood background preparation, and this is very dangerous.

In a similar demonstration of lack of understanding, on Airforce One the other day, Trump made a comment linking the Houthis with the Sunni branch of Islam when they are actually Shia. As followers of Zaydism, one of the requirements of which is to support the most beleaguered and put upon Muslims in the world wherever they may be found, the Houthis - better known as the Ansar Allah movement - will not be deterred by the killing of their civilian brothers and sisters. On the contrary, it will simply bestir them to even greater activities which will come at Western cost.

Not being funny, but it would really be a good idea for the guys behind Chump to get their act together and start briefing him properly about what he is involving himself in. Blundering around like a bull in a china shop in the fragile world of international geopolitics is not a good idea. You want the man with his finger on the nuclear button to actually understand what he is doing. It would help. It would really help. It would really help.

[peter]

Mmmm....

Methinks Kier Stamer will not have been pleased to see EU President Ursula von der Leyen stealing his thunder by making a naked play to take center stage in post-USA Europe - a position he clearly had eyes on for himself.

She gave a speech bringing us up to speed on the 'coalition of the willing' plans, saying they were advancing well and more interest was being shown by other (unnamed) countries.

She said that she could announce that the EU would be "front loading" the G20 donations to Ukraine (very good as usual at giving away other people's money) but then came the worrying bit.

She said in respect of the future that the "ready for 2030 plans" were well advanced in respect of the defence of Europe - but notably failed to say ready for what?

What are we talking here? War with Russia? Because that is what some commentators have earlier been asking. "Is the EU really serious in thinking that it can take on Russia in a European land war?" This is what Judge Nepolitanu was asking on his show a week or two ago and I didn't pay it much attention, but maybe I should have!

If this really is the case then it looks like we might have broken away from the EU just in time, because at least this way we can make our own foreign policy decisions (and surely even Kier Stamer isn't stupid enough to get us embroiled in a war with Russia).

This is frightening stuff: the neoliberal playbook is dead in the water with Trump in the Whitehouse, and von der Leyen is clearly making a play to be 'Princess of Europe' in the absence of the USA overlords. The Russophobia of the centrist neoliberal ideology is unwavering and they desperately need Ukraine as a 'porcupine' to jab away at Russia with to justify ever increasing arms expenditure. (Not enough to start WW3 if it can be helped, but enough to keep the line on the graph pointing upwards.)

All I know is that if it comes to 'signing up johhny' for holidays in Moscow it's exit Peter Skates-on, stage left!

[peter]

A few days ago on the 6pm news it was reported that armed officers had shot dead a man on Milton Keynes railway station, after police were called to the scene following reports that a man wielding a gun was present on the station platform.

No name or details were given other than this, and at the time I smelled a rat.

I remarked to my wife that I thought it unlikely that the man had been toting a gun - guns are simply not that accessible in the UK - and the failure to confirm that a gun had been found at the scene was enough for me to think that it was unlikely. Needless to say, it was not reported that no gun had been found, though clearly this would have been known to police at the time. Whether the BBC or Sky, who both ran the 'story' actually knew this is another matter, although like me, they would have been bound to have had their suspicions.

Sure enough, this morning, tucked unobtrusively away on the BBC website under the title, "Man shot dead by police at railway station named," we learn that David Joyce, a 38 yo resident of the city, was in fact armed with a knife at the time of his death.

Again, this is presented in the article as almost incidental:

David Joyce....was killed on Tuesday after police responded to reports of a man with a gun at the station. It later emerged he was carrying a knife. Thames Valley Police said a single shot was fired by an officer and Mr Joyce was given first aid at the scene, but later died.

Well at least it was only one shot that killed Mr Joyce I suppose. He wasn't 'filled with lead' ala something out of the Valentine's Day Massacre. But really? This was clearly a man undergoing a severe psychotic episode - he was ill for God's sake - he neither needed nor deserved to be shot down by a firearm, when a group of able bodied officers were there, kevlar vested and quite capable of subduing him without the need for his being killed.

If they were seriously not capable of doing so then I suggest that the police officer of today is a very different animal to the ones that were 'on the streets' when I was a younger man.

Needless to say the police have already begun the process of excusing their actions: the BBC website report says that the Independent Office for Police Conduct who are investigating the event has already examined a "substantial amount of cctv and bodycam footage", and has established that the man ran at police wielding the knife before being brought down at close range with a single shot to the abdomen.

Put like this it sounds as if the officer had little option other than to discharge his firearm. But here's a few supplementary questions for consideration regarding the incident. How close is 'close'? Could any other means have been used to disable him? Could a leg-wound have been used? Was the man making a genuine rush with the intention of wounding or killing the officer, or was it a feint as some distressed individuals are known to make in similar circumstances? How big was this knife and what had brought about the circumstances under which this man was by accounts wielding it on Milton Keynes railway station. Did the firing officer know that the man was holding a knife and not a gun (and what position was the knife in when the shot was fired? Could he not have been tasared rather than shot?

Finally, how did the erroneous information that the man was wielding a gun get introduced into the picture in the first place. And why were we not told in the initial report that the man had only been armed with a knife, rather than leading us to believe it was a gun?

These are I think all pertinent questions, but I won't hold my breath waiting for them to be answered.

This is what happens when you arm police officers to the teeth and send them out against a public that they have been taught to regard as almost 'the enemy'. Compassion goes out of the window and a gung-ho attitude born of too much tv and crime drama viewing creeps in. This is how the tv shows it to be, so this is how it is.

As for David Joyce - he won't be needing to hold his breath anymore because he's breathed his last. If there's any thing positive that can come out of this story, it will be via the answering of the questions I've asked above and actually taking lessons from what is learned in the answering of them. That way, value can be drawn from even this most bleak of stories.

Amen to that.

[peter]

It is almost inconceivable the level of disinterest that is being shown by our media (not to mention our politicians) in the fact that there is mounting evidence that 15 Red Crescent aid workers (including one United Nations employee) were systematically executed by the IDF in Gaza, while attending a humanitarian call-out.

Two separate incidents, in which a first ambulance convoy was hit, followed by a second (apparently going out in search of the first), resulted in the deaths of the paramedics, following which both victims and vehicles were buried in shallow pits dug by an excavator.

The IDF has by accounts been less than helpful in the locating of the bodies for proper internment by their families, and such evidence as has been found is difficult to comprehend. Pathological/forensic reports from Khan Younis Nasser Hospital suggest that the men were shot at short range with at least one having his hands and feet tied.

Think about this.

We have become so inured to this kind of story that it no longer seems even worthy of reportage. Atrocities that should send us reeling to a wall or chair for support are absorbed as if commonplace. Our media chooses rather to devote its attention to Russell Brand, who the Met has at last managed to scrape up some charges against.

Or perhaps the media and political silence on this is because they simply know that there is nothing that can be said, no way it can be spun, that supports the official line of full and unequivocal support for Israel. The horror of the genocide now stands fully exposed in all of its atrocious glory, and now, accepting of what is being done, what nothing can change or alter, there is no more to be said. To stand up and put your head above the parapet is to invite the power of the lobby to fall upon you, so best say nothing. Perhaps that was Brand's mistake. I know nothing of what this sleazy little man got up to in his spare time, but he certainly ruffled a few feathers with his podcasts and political interventions. Either way it is him in the news and Gaza nowhere to be seen.

It is what it is.

-----0-----

Ex Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, sensing an opportunity to get back into politics in an area where current Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch is not going to cut much of an inroad, has weighed in on the economy.

In the wake of Trump's liberation day and the economic fallout thereof, we should he says, develop into the "Singapore-on-Thames" that was so beloved of the Leave campaign during the heady days of promotion of Brexit.

Low taxes and low welfare. That's Hunt's idea for success. Make the rich richer and fuck the rest. Nice one Jeremy: that'll be music in the ears to the party faithful and should set you in good stead for when they decide to dump Badenoch overboard.

But we all know where this Trump stuff is going. If it doesn't cause the teetering world economy to crash, demanding a huge effort of money printing to bail out the wealthy (for which of course the rest of us will have to pay at a later point), then there'll just be a huge inflationary surge in which we'll se our disposable incomes fall even further and faster than they were already doing.

None of it matters because the decision has been long made that too many people at the lower end of the social scale have been doing too well for too long. Time to get things back to where wealth is concentrated in a much smaller section of the populace, and if this sqeeze-out at the bottom can only be achieved by inflationary pressure then so be it. The insulated wealth of the top tier just rises with the costs, while that of the people gets reduced. People fall into debt, sell their assets such as they are, and the wealth heads in exactly the direction it is always intended to - straight up.

The post war consensus of welfare and support, of more equitable sharing of the wealth of the national assets etc (homes and properties etc) - this unusual blip in the far more historically and geographically normal state, where the huge majority of wealth sits with a tiny minority atop a tiny middle class and a huge and disposesed poor......well that's all over folks. If you haven't got it yet watch my lips. It's gone, finito, expired. Like John Cleese's parrot it is no more. The good times were good while they lasted but we have to let them go.

I really wonder what these clowns who govern us are really up to. Do they really think that the only way that the dying neoliberal economics of the last half century (is it that long - I forget...since Thatcher and Reagan anyway) can be saved by war? With Russia? Is that what they seek, these von der Leyen's and Stamer's? Are they prepping us for that with their 'Readiness 2030' plans, with their reports in the Times that "Half a million young people have never had a job"? Is this what they are doing - softening us up to accept the conscription of our youth to be fed into the meat-grinder of Ukraine or Russia? When all else fails go to war?

Nothing would suprise me anymore and I have almost given up on trying to make any sense of it.

Enough Peter. Just shut up for once.

[peter]

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy is "deeply concerned" that two British MPs have been refused entry to Israel along with two accompanying aides.

They were turned away on Saturday, on the instructions of immigration officials, because they intended to spread "hateful rhetoric against Israel and the Israeli population."

"I have made clear to my counterparts in the Israeli government that this is no way to treat British parliamentarians," said Lammy, seemingly unaware that as he spoke citizens were being murdered in execution style killings, the entire population was being placed under eviction notice and what amounted to a 'liquidation' style exercise was being levied across the whole of the Gazan territory.

Pictures shown by Owen Jones in a recent YouTube posting (Israel unleashes final destruction of Gaza - Owen Jones) reveal the southern city of Rafah as a blitzkrieg devastated wasteland. He gives gruelling testimonies of the pitiful pleas of war-broken individuals, crying out for the horror to end - even in death rather than in having yet another panic driven move enforced upon them. Terrible accounts of burned and bloodied children being carried by their shattered parents from the broken remains of bombed out schools and hospitals. A dark, dark place where it has been decided that no-one can live.

And in the most poignant part of this distressing post, Jones relates that following a period of 18 months of continuous calling out of this outrage, he and a fellow journalist recently spoke, and agreed that nothing they could say could now make a difference. No help was coming for the people of Gaza. All the world could do now, was sit back and act as observers. Observers for that day when the reckoning would finally come, as come it surely would.

For David Lammy and his ilk, recognition this late in the day that they have been on the wrong side of this is not becoming. He and his colleagues in government have enabled this unfolding tragedy to occur and no words of his - even those misdirected in cod criticism of the perpetrators for snubbing heaven forbid, "British parliamentarians" (shock-horror) - can now absolve him or them of the guilt they carry. When the slaughter is finished, the last bomb dropped and the last building bulldozed - when the remnants of the Gazan population are finally distributed to wherever they can land, in whatever number this might be, the world as a whole - not the culpable West, not the lately turned politicians suddenly realising their exposure - will take stock and ask what should it do.

At this point it will be aposite for Lammy, for Stamer, for the legion 'friends of Israel' (you know who you are) to prepare their words. Because history will want to know what you have to say. At this point your role, be it actively executing material help to the genocide, or simply as at-a-distance voting participants, passing the motions that underpinned our policies of arming and supplying reconnaissance to Israel, will be weighed and judged, and your lasting legacy will be finalised, cemented in history for all time and for all to see.

-----0-----

The funny thing about freedom is that our political leaders have almost limitless support for it, as long as it is being employed in ways that they support or that in turn support them.

The freedom of the Tommy Robinson's, the Tate brothers et al, to their opinions, doesn't seem to come so easily to them as the freedom they expect to be allowed - freedom to say that the disabled must be "allowed" to go out and support themselves, that the old "cannot expect to be supported" against the national economic interest, that no child above the two-limit maximum, should be lifted out of poverty.

The same of course goes with democracy. They love the freedom of all to present their ideas for judgment by the people, until it appears that the people might choose someone or something outwith the status quo that they happen to represent. Suddenly at this point reasons will be found why this person, that protocol, won't be followed.

Take Germany. In the recent elections the right wing AFD took the second largest number of seats. It has been protocol in Germany for a longstanding period, for the second largest party's leader to be given the role of vice-Chancellor. It's not law - but it's just the way it's been done. Suddenly on this occasion, the practice is not to be followed.

Ot take the Romanian elections. Far right candidate Calin Georgescu, standing as an independent candidate for president seemed to be doing rather well. In fact very well. It even looked as if he might win. Suddenly a reason was discovered - perfectly legitimate and absolutely nothing to do with Georgescu - why the elections could not be held as scheduled.

Now in France we have Marine Le Pen. Again far right and not frankly a very good sort. But she seemed to speak the language of the people and even looked, on her third attempt, as though she might pull off a win. But not to be. Discovered to have been "embezzling" money meant for public spending to put towards her own campaigns, she's suddenly out in the cold and barred from political office for 5 years.

Or Corbyn. Stalking horse outsider, put forward as candidate for Labour leadership as a laugh, a nose-thumbing at the left, because the neoliberal centre thought it would be fun. Suddenly he won. Suddenly it looked like a left winger could actually become PM. And the machine slipped into gear.

Yes, democracy is a fine thing, and freedom is an absolute right before which everything else must bow......until it goes against your particular grain. And then suddenly they become "concepts that are nuanced" and want to be considered in how best they be instantiated.

Sometimes in life it is necessary to 'dance a little sidestep', but always remember, your commitment to these ideas will not be judged by how you apply them to the people you agree with, but rather to those with whom you don't.

[Avatar]

The terrible irony of the 21st century...Israel achieves its longstanding aim at the cost of literally becoming what they always claimed to have abhorred. To do themselves what they swore would never again be done to them.

History will indeed judge us harshly. As it should.

--A

[peter]

Indeed Av, indeed.

The Guardian website informs us that plans are being drawn up for a "national counter-terrorism force" that will operate independently of the local forces and cover the country as a whole.

I'd not heard anything much about this prior to spotting the article this morning, but given that "police chiefs" are themselves now carrying out the planning, the plans must be considerably advanced beyond the formulation stage and moving towards the executuional. The plans, say said chiefs, represent the "biggest overhaul of policing since the 1960's".

And who could argue with the development of such a force. The terrorists after all, are becoming more sophisticated, getting more and better technology available to them with which to pursue their ends, and are not constrained by 'county lines' or any such considerations. Deemed as a significant step forward in the police's ability to counter "violent extremism and state-sponsored terrorism", the proposals will come into law with the presentation of a white paper to parliament later in the year. No doubt it will pass through the House without issue.

So we'll all be able to sleep more easily in our beds. Except those of us who might be feeling a creeping disquiet.

Because we all know in theory that this seems like a sound idea, but who will watch the watchers? What will the remit of this force be, what will limit its reach? And who will decide who and what these extremists are? Where will the line between acceptable criticism of government policy and active undermining of the state objectives be drawn. History has shown us an example of how such ideas can be bent out of shape before. How such a tool of prevention can morph into a tool of repression. The tool in question was called the Gestapo and its creator was Herman Goring. And strangely enough, he created this force by exactly the same means by which our police chiefs are today suggesting that we create ours - by the amalgamation of the currently separate anti-terrorist units that exist within the individual forces of the country, into one autonomous whole.

And let's just look at this from a different angle.

Governments in democracies require legitimacy. I've spoken of this before. If a government or successive governments consistently fail to live up to the mandates upon which their elections were granted, then with each successive failure their legitimacy becomes diminished. The response of government to falling legitimacy is to increase the grasp with which it holds the people. In such cases, expressions of dissatisfaction and complaint become increasingly moved towards the ream of 'extremism' and authoritarian and repressive measures are strengthened to deal with them. Laws against protest, against gathering to protest, about what and what may not be said are tightened. Ever more 'permissions' are required for this or that activity and new forces are created, unencumbered by previous notions of democracy or freedom of expression or individual rights.

And looking at our own post covid governments, where success can hardly have been said to be the order of the day, this tendency would seem to be being followed as per the recognised playbook.

Laws drawn up by Suella Braverman to deal with gatherings during the pandemic, public order acts, are still in place and proving rather useful in limiting the activities of the pro-Palestinian marchers and activists. (Incidentally, as an aside, above you will find a post about 6 quaker girls arrested from their meeting house for "planning to create a public nuisance". It created a bit of news coverage on the day, but little follow-up thereafter. It transpires that their individual houses were raided in subsequent days and subjected to invasive searches. No mention of this found its way into the media.) These public order laws have been shorn up with additional changes since the pandemic and who who would be surprised to see current Home Secretary Yvette Cooper adding her stamp to this before this is all over.

And then we have the online security bills. These can always be justified - we are cracking down on the child abusers, the extremists and peddlars of hate, the spreaders of disinformation and foreign propoganda. But the same laws that apply to these groupings apply to the rest of us, and if suddenly we find ourselves not in agreement with the government, feeling incenced enough to want to comment about something, will we too find ourselves in the cross-hairs of these laws?

And now it seems to me that the final string of a very dangerous fiddle is being tuned up. Like any tool, any weapon, its use for good or ill lies not in the weapon itself, but in the weirder. We are absolutely reliant upon the goodwill of our leaderships not to abuse their powers - the powers that they grant themselves - and the historical precedents are not encouraging.

Failing ideologies, failing policies and falling legitimacy. Rising control, tightening of rules and the grip of state, rewriting of the laws. And now creation of a state police service dedicated to looking inwards at the population. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this doesn't seem like a good recipe for the future of the people to me. Maybe some of you will look at this post and raise your eyebrows. "Poor Peter," you'll say. "He's getting himself into a stew over nothing. This isn't Nazi Germany - nothing like it. It's totally different here." Well maybe you are right. Maybe I'm just paranoid and this is all just perfectly reasonable stuff. But placing trust in the people we've got leading us is not something that comes easy to me. And sorry, but like it or not the arguments on that score are firmly on my side.

[peter]

Today I could talk about Trump’s tarrifs and the effects they are having on the global economy. I could talk about Israel's having to backtrack on its story of the reasons why 15 Palestinian paramedics were killed in what is increasingly looking like virtually execution style fashion (they didn't approach the IDF fighters that killed them "behaving suspiciously" with no lights or visible markings after all). Or I could talk about Kier Stamer and his 'man-with-a-plan' performance that's fooling no-one, as he grapples with an increasingly obvious emerging picture that neither he nor his Chancellor have the faintest idea what to do as their growth based economic plans crumble to dust before their eyes.

But frankly I simply don't feel inspired to write today and that's a big thing for me. I don't do this because I love it - I do it because I have something to say. So if a day comes where I don't feel this, then perhaps best just stay quiet.

Have a good day folks.

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On second thoughts.....

Yesterday I listened to James O'brien's morning monologue (keeping tabs on the enemy style of thing) and heard him focus on four stories that were interrelated.

Firstly he recounted a Guardian front page story in which ex-IDF soldiers had (as part of a membership group whose function was to inform the Israeli population what was actually happening in Gaza....interesting in itself) described how they had essentially cleared a strip around the entire Gaza territory some 300 meters wide, giving Israeli forces clear vision of anybody or anything approaching them. This designated 'kill-zone' was, one ex soldier described, "like Hiroshima" in its level of destruction.

Secondly O'brien focused on the altering explanations and descriptions Israel was coming out with in respect of the killing of the 15 Red Crescent paramedics in Gaza, where footage had now been found (and verified) of the clearly marked vehicles coming under fire and then the destroyed vehicles being approached by soldiers who were seen to fire at targets lying on the ground before them. Israel had said prior to the footage being discovered on a buried victims phone, that the ambulances had been unmarked, without lights and behaving suspiciously.

Thirdly, he turned to the refusal of entry of two British MPs into Israel that had occurred last weekend. Specifically he turned his anger on Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who had said in interview that she understood and supported Israel in the decision it had made. O'brien labelled this act as near traitorous, though he was careful not to use the exact word.

Alas I can't remember his fourth topic, but it was essentially in the same region, and I will say his whole monologue was cleverly done.

O'brien at the start of this was avidly pro-Israel. As the months wore on and the list of iniquities that were being committed in the name of Israel "defending itself" grew, his stance changed. He has since become a clear and critical voice pointing out every single crime they have committed. When the reckoning comes no finger will be pointed at James O'brien for not calling out the genocide.

But what James O'brien has unequivocally not done, is to call out the Kier Stamer government (or indeed the Sunak government before it) for their role in making all of this possible. He's walked the absolute knife edge of keeping himself right side of morality without actually acting to exert the pressure in the one place where his influence could be effective..

All the criticism of Israel in the world is effectively meaningless - nothing immaterial (in the physical sense of the word) is going to change their behaviour. But pressure on the UK government, exposure of the role of the UK in facilitating the Israeli executed operation - the planes, the intel provision, the weapons parts - is the one area where pressure can be applied to effect - and this is the one place where O'brien fears to tread. In fact he even manages to keep right side of his Stamer administration friends by spinning his monologue into a criticism of the Conservatives! Smartly done James old boy! Smartly done.

But in fairness to O'brien, it's absolutely true to say that if he the once turned his guns on where they need to be trained, he wouldn't be in situ on his LBC platform for more than 5 minutes. One presenter has already been unloaded for making comments critical of the government in relation to its pro Israel policy and James O'brien has no intention of becoming the second. And his performance in avoiding this fate while still remaining on the right side of the argument (re his professed views regarding the activities of Israel) is a masterclass. It's cowardice of the worst kind, but it's cowardice with purpose and skillfully executed.

And you are going to see this on an ever increasing basis across the board as times go on. People who could have made a difference, but elected to keep schtum and rather exercise 'discretion' in their commentary. David Lammy is up to it right now, but he's a politician absolutely exposed to the guilt of his administration. You'd expect it. No it's the media pundits, the journalists and editors who must be held to account for their silence, for not exercising the leverage they had in the place where it would be effective. In a laser sharp focus on the complicity of our own governments. In shouting this from the rooftops of every media outlet, legacy and new, from whence a voice could be raised, a press printed.

Remember this and be on the lookout for it. You are going to see lots of it. As with the Nazis, no-one who supported our policies will be found in our commentariat, our political classes, when the chips finally fall out of this.