What Do You Think Today?

[peter]

With each passing day the economic truth hidden within Jeremy Hunt's budget emerges and the voices raised in opposition get louder.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies, a right-wing economic research institute based in London, has said that it struggles to see where the cuts implicit in Hunt's statement are going to come from. With services already cut to the bone, councils up and down the country on the verge of bankruptcy and the backlogs of accumulated workload facing everything from the NHS, through the Courts, to the DVLC and Passport Office, how exactly are such cuts going to be effected? With a projected 20 billion pounds black-hole building up by the year 2028 (if the Chancellor's 1percent spending limits are maintained by the incoming Labour government), it's difficult to see the country becoming anything other than the effective third world wasteland for any but those enjoying the highest incomes.

Because it's always the poor that are effected by this sort of thing.

Take a local school near where I live as a typical example. The school runs trips to a nearby swimming baths for four of its year groups, in order to satisfy the curriculum commitment to teach all schoolchildren to swim as part of an important lesson in life-skills. Struggling to fund the transport it already times it's swimming classes for first thing in the morning, so that parents may drop their children off at the baths instead of at the school. This cuts back on one journey. The single return to the school costs 109 pounds for every trip - a distance of about 5 miles - and this is multiplied by four years times the number of pool visits made.

The headmaster said in interview on local TV that the only way forward was to cut the year groups in which swimming instruction was provided down to two. This cut to the education service won't impact on the children of wealthier families - they will have access to pools and beaches far more readily than those of poorer families - but poor families will feel the loss keenly.

Take dental services. In my area, you won't find a NHS dentist for love nor money whether you are an adult or a child, and with more and more dentists closing down the NHS side of their businesses, the number of people without access to NHS dental care is rising exponentially. So who will be the people turning up at hospitals with dental emergencies? The poorest in our society who simply cannot afford even the most basic of private treatment.

The story is the same everywhere and is the reason that local authority leaders are warning about civil unrest if services are cut yet further (this morning's 'i'). The Mirror tells us of 8 billion pounds worth of stealth tax hidden in the detail of the budget that will hit the oldest people in our society (which I happen to be rapidly heading towards) - also a source of future discontent. And while, like Laura Keunsberg last weekend, the press and media generally are quick to point out the ravages of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine on our economy, no mention of either Brexit or the Liz Truss mini-budget debacle is ever made.

This economic travesty which is impacting the lives of ever greater numbers within our society is down to the Conservative governments we have had for the past 14 years. They are going to try to tell you different; on the television and in the papers, and very shortly on your doorstep. Don't believe them. Don't listen to the lies and excuses they will be boning up on even as I post. They are to blame. Again - they've been in power for 14 years. The buck stops there.

Chuck 'em out and then next time, chuck out Labour as well. Let's have some new blood entering our political arena; the overlapping of our two main parties is now so pronounced that only at the furthest peripheries of either party can any true differences between the two be found. Truly have we entered the era of the UniParty. We have it presented to us as two parties with a half of a percent of difference between them, masquerading as the illusion of choice. Both now dance to the tune of the same invisible masters, the business and commercial interests that fund them with donations, with the tacit understanding that nothing of significance will be allowed to change.

We need to put a stop to this, even if it means stepping away from the center for a while. The center has had its way for decades now and does not seem to be working in our collective interests. Democracy has been usurped by liberal-democracy, and they ain't the same thing.

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Here's an interesting thing that you won't have heard in the media.

You remember that thing in parliament last week, or a couple of weeks ago (I loose track) where Kier Stamer stole the SNP's opposition day motion and got himself off the hook?

At the time I wasn't sure how it had worked, but I've learned a bit since then.

You remember it was the SNPs day, and against parliament courtesy (if you like), Kier Stamer, because he would be embarrassed by a Labour supporting of the SNP motion for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza which he himself had not supported previously, introduced a watered down motion. Now Speaker Hoyle should not have elected to put this Labour motion to the vote before the SNP motion was voted on, because the rules of the House are that once a motion is passed, then no other motion may be heard. So in putting the Labour motion to vote before the SNP one, and knowing that the Labour motion would likely pass (saving Stamer the embarrassment of being shown to be at odds with three-quarters of his own party), he effectively stole the SNPs right of having their own opposition day motion heard.

Remember that Hoyle was a Labour MP before being elected speaker, at which point he is expected to renounce all party affiliation and act in a completely non-partisan manner.

So, discounting Hoyle's weak excuses which are effectively worthless, what exactly was going on here? Who stood to gain from this stepping away from parliamentary convention and courtesy?

Clearly Stamer: his leadership could have been rocked by a large scale rebellion on an issue as important as the ceasefire in Gaza. It was imperative for him that he slubber up a watered-down version of the SNP motion that would just about satisfy his MPs, but still not see him calling for an immediate ceasefire. (He did this by demanding a 'humanitarian ceasefire' rather than a straightforward ceasefire (the one being a temporary one, the other a permanent affair) and removing the demands that Israel cease in its "collective punishment" of the Gazan inhabitants.)

Certainly not Hoyle. His credibility as Speaker is permanently tarnished and this perversion of the House protocols will be the defining memory of his time as Speaker. He'll have earned his guaranteed continuation in his role as Speaker following the election, but he will carry the whiff of his treachery around with him for the rest of his political career. The right wing media will not forget that he saved Stamer from taking a serious pre-election blow to the body and will make him pay in their own good time.

The government of Israel. Now they were perhaps the biggest beneficiary of all. It would only take one of the major Western powers to speak out openly, to change its support for Israel from unconditional, to conditional upon its starting to behave in a civilised and democratic manner towards the Palestinians, and the whole edifice of their post-war (WW2 that is) strategy would begin to come asunder. These seemingly unimportant votes a thousand miles away from the Levant are very important to them. Very important indeed.

So it will come as no surprise to learn that the Israeli government has fostered strong ties with the Labour Party over many years. Large numbers of MPs are members of the 'Labour Friends of Israel' political lobby group, who regularly take groups of the same over to Israel on tours, fact finding missions and regular jollies of the normal political kind. And the funding of all this is in good part from the Israeli state itself. And just so that we have political balance, the same situation pertains with the Conservative Friends of Israel as well. So whichever of the two parties is in power, Israel will have friends that they can rely on. And this is hugely important if Israel is to continue doing what any other country in the world would have been virtually cancelled for, in the occupied territories, in the settler communities, and most pertinently in the ravaged territory of the Gaza Strip today.

So it should come as no surprise to learn that both Kier Stamer and Linsay Hoyle - both of them - are members of the Labour Friends of Israel.

And as I say, square meters of printed press space, hours of visual media time, were expended on the parliamentary debacle of the SNPs stolen opposition day, but not once did I hear that particular fact mentioned.

[peter]

'Shocking CNN report puts Israel to shame', posted by Novara Media on YouTube.

Anyone who doubts the obscenity of what is transpiring in Gaza should watch the above horrendous YouTube posting. I defy you to do so and not come away feeling that a boundary has been crossed that can no longer be ignored by the people of the West, even while our leaderships continue to gaslight us about "rising extremism" and how we threaten to align ourselves with the same for simply calling out our administrations for their support and enablement of Israel in their murderous activity.

The video shows the poor emaciated children of Gaza, literally starved until they look like skeletons lying on their cots and beds, dying in their hundreds by the day as we speak.

Meanwhile presenter Aron Bastani tells of imagery that Novara Media cannot put up on the channel (and dear God, what is there is bad enough) of tanks being driven over civilians, of people being shot in food queues, of savagery not imagined as being possible in a civilised world - and somehow it is we who would call it out, we who would take our governments to task, who are the bad ones, who risk being radicalised by standing shoulder to shoulder with the Gazan people in their plight.

And meanwhile, our leaders engage in furious backtracking and distraction techniques, in order to cover their tracks, to obfuscate their guilt and wrongness, in having lent their support for the atrocity in the making. Joe Biden, alongside Ursula von der Leyen - the two biggest criminals in their complicity with the Netanyahu administration in the unfolding horror - scramble to suddenly express their outrage at what has been done. Biden even has the brass gall to make his volta face into a photo-op as he begins his presidential bid to secure a further five years in the Whitehouse. He is going to build a floating port, a pontoon, from which to unload food and medical supplies for the humanitarian relief of Gaza - a humanitarian disaster which he, along with the UK government have fostered by cutting of their support for UNWRA - to supply relief to the dying population.

He has to know that there is absolutely no shortage of food and relief supplies already on the borders of Gaza: that the problem is not the lack of such supplies - it is that the Netanyahu regime has no intention of allowing such supplies to reach the Palestinian people within the Strip. And no amount of pontoons groaning with supplies will make the slightest piddling difference if the relief cannot be got to the people, be distributed from one end of Gaza to the other, in order to adress the suffering as seen in the above video post. The Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant made absolutely plain at the beginning of this operation that the Gazans would be denied food, water and medical supplies for the duration of the Israeli operation, and he has made good on his promise. The language might have toned down in recent weeks, but the promise remains, and all of the American pontoons in the world won't make the slightest difference without boots on the ground going in and completing the distribution - which Biden has not the slightest intention of doing.

And meanwhile Michael Gove, the man who would re-write the meaning of the term 'extremist' so it can basically be expanded to include anyone that the government chooses to, tells us that by attending peaceful protests we stand alongside enemies of the state and risk being radicalised ourselves. In attendance of future protests, he says, "Ignorance will no longer serve as an excuse."

My God, what have we come to that this lizard in human form should threaten us - we the people - for the exercising of our hard won right of protest, because in so doing we expose the moral vacuity of our elected leadership in their misguided support of a potential genocide. It simply beggars belief.

Except that it doesn't. And that it is happening as we speak. Yes Mr Gove, the Sturmfuhrer's outfit will look just fine on you, and if the cap fits, then wear it.

-----0-----

Apparently Foreign Secretary David Cameron has had a meeting with an Israeli minister to discuss the aid situation in respect of Gaza, and subsequently said he had told him in no uncertain terms that Israel must improve its performance in terms of 'improvement on the ground'.

This has apparently pissed off some of the more vocal supporters of Israel amongst the Conservative Party backbench MPs, and some have confessed to being "irritated" by the Foreign Secretary's comments.

Theresa Villiers is quoted in the Telegraph this morning as saying, "The UK government must support Israel's right to defend itself against the genocidal death cult that attacked it on October 7th." She continued, "Lord Cameron should acknowledge the huge efforts being made by the IDF to minimise civilian casualties, and also facilitate aid to Gaza."

Seriously, I barely know where to begin with this. I mean, what planet is this woman living on? Has she seen nothing of what is going down in Gaza? Has she really no conception of what is happening or is she just wilfully blind to it because it is simply too horrifying for her to face up to?

Watch the CNN report I site above Therese, and then return to us with the same commentary. I challenge you to do this. Go on - I challenge you.

[peter]

What an odd day for news.

There's the debacle of the Princess of Wales' photo release, her first 'public appearance' since undergoing major abdominal surgery for.....who knows what, and then the bizarre story of the removal of 34 corpses from funeral parlours in Hull following the questioning of the directors of the business by police.

First the photo.

A bit of background; Princess Kate aka the Princess of Wales, was taken into hospital and underwent what the Palace described as "planned surgery" some weeks ago, without the public having been made aware before the announcement, that she might be suffering from any medical issues.

Kate is a very popular royal, and the lack of warning combined with the refusal to reveal any details of why she was undergoing the surgery, has worried the public that there might be a serious problem of which they are not being informed, and has fuelled speculation as to what exactly is going on. This has reached a peak, added to when Prince William suddenly pulled himself from an important public engagement for "personal reasons", with some pretty wild speculations circling on social media.

Not a pip from Kensington Palace (the abode of the Wales' and where all statements pertaining to the couple are issued from), with the exception of one or two short reports that "the Princess is doing well, but not expected to be returning to duties before Easter at the earliest".

But on Saturday, presumably in an attempt to provide some reassurance to the public and to scotch the rising tide of rumour and speculation on the Internet, a pre-mothers day photograph of Kate, arms around her children, was released to the public. In the photo which was apparently taken by her husband William last week, Kate is (on the surface) positively blooming, laughing and hugging her children, while seated between them with her legs crossed. The media seized on the photo with the usual avidly enthusiastic fervour it displays for anything Kate related, added to understandably by the uncertainty which had preceeded the photo's release. But all was not as it seemed to be.

The tsunami hit this morning with the incredible news that 3 of the world leading news agencies, led by the highly respected Reuters, had pulled the photo, issuing it with a 'kill notice' , on the grounds that it had been manipulated. This is against their policy for acceptance of an image, unless the manipulation is made clear and declared by the issuer. The issue of the Kate picture was centered around one of the hands of her daughter Charlotte, which shows clear signs of manipulation. The agencies are keen to point out that there is no suggestion of manipulation of the part of the image containing Kate herself, but the damage is done. That the image has been manipulated at all is enough, and now the fire is set.

Why is the Princess not wearing her wedding ring? Why is there a tree in full leaf behind the family - a tree not normally seen as such in mid-March? And so it goes on.

Personally, I think that the Princess does look pretty wan (if that's the word). Seated as she is, thin and not standing, the image has the quality of an invalid in a bath-chair about it. But the lass has clearly been through a traumatic surgical procedure (whatever it is being her own business) - she has every right to look a bit frail. But more to the point, if Kensington Palace thought it was a good idea to release a doctored image of the Princess and her children they must be mad. You don't pull off a stunt like that on these guys - they are professionals for God's sake. They deal in this kind of stuff. Now they have just made what should have been a reassuring public release into a source for further wild speculation. I do think Kate has been pretty sick. But it's up to the Wales' what information they choose to release and it's their business alone. Yes I understand the public concern and respect it; we need William and Kate, hale and healthy - God knows this country needs something to lift its spirits and (not wishing the King any ill) the ascension of a young couple to the throne when it happens, will provide just such a fillip.

So let's stop with the speculation, leave the couple to deal with this in their own terms, and Kensington Palace - get your act together and stop playing games that are outside your league.

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And the corpses. Well, they'll have to wait for another day because I'm busting for a piss and I can't be holding it any longer. This is a story that will perhaps rise from the dead at some future point.

[peter]

Now let's look at the Legacy Independent Funeral Directors stor (and the important twist in the tail that I promise, you are not going to see reported anywhere else in the damn country!)

The story started with the police turning up at the business for a look-see, following the receipt of a number of phone-calls saying that all was not well. Failure to provide a respectful burial is a criminal offence in the UK (or something like it) and the police intervened in the operation following "concerns for the care of the dead." Two of the business owners have been arrested and are (presumably) to be charged with offences relating to the case, but alarmingly police were so concerned with the situation they discovered at the 3 funeral homes run by the company, that they ordered the removal of 34 bodies discovered therein, back to the county morgue.

To make the story even more troubling, it appears that the said corpses were not easily identifiable (presumably no name tags or whatever had been kept attached to the bodies) and police now face the formidable task of identification of the individuals from the historical records kept by the business of internment transactions they have previously entered into. Understandably people from the surrounding area who have used the business service in recent weeks and months are deeply concerned for the fate of their own loved ones, and are contacting the police in numbers. Matters will not be improved by this morning's report that it appears that one of the families contacted to be told that their deceased relative had been identified, had already received their ashes from the company. Either the police have made a terrible mistake in identification, or possibly I'm afraid, the skulduggery of the company owners has gone deeper than thought, up until this point in the enquiry.

Now what has been going on here? As yet we have had no explanation as to why this situation has come about. What can be going on that has led to this state of affairs? Here is where I'm going to break the news with a speculation that I'm going to put a pound to a penny, sums up pretty much what has happened.

Funerals have become an ever more expensive business in the UK with even the most limited affair costing many thousands of pounds. As a result more and more people are turning away from them and taking up offers of a new type of arrangement, a so-called 'no-frills' service, whereby the deceased's remains are removed from the mortuary of storage to the funeral home, who then arrange for cremation and the necessary paperwork that must done prior to this, with no service or coffin etc, but with the ashes of the deceased being returned to their family at a later point as an option.

Cheaper by thousands of pounds, this option has become increasingly popular as people struggle with their everyday living costs, let alone the additional burden of an unusual expense like a funeral cost. Now Legacy has clearly capitalised on this trend, and has entered into contracts in large numbers, with people in Hull and the surrounding areas, of the 'pre-paid' type, in which people pay in advance for their own internment or cremation (more usually), in order to spare their families future costs at the point of their demise.

Now - and here's where things get interesting - under normal circumstances people die at a pretty steady rate. It's pretty predictable how many cremations and burials will be being performed over a given period, and cremation/burial services are in situ in sufficient quantity to cope with this load. There might be times when capacity is reached, say during influenza outbreaks, cold-snaps and the like, but in the main services are sufficient to deal with the incoming 'trade' without too much trouble. At the aforementioned times of high demand, waiting periods for crematorium slots might be high, and waits of up to a couple of weeks are not unheard of. (IIRC, my own father's cremation was ten days or so in the waiting.) But these periods are not normally a source of too much trouble and backlogs are usually caught up with in a short period of time.

Things at present however, seem to be somewhat unusual.

My wife works with a lady whose husband is an operator at a crematorium in the next town from where I live, and she has told my wife that the influx of people dying and needing cremation is through the roof (if that isn't an inappropriate way to put it). They are working at full capacity at numbers the like of which they have never had to deal with before. And I'm betting that this is a situation mirrored up and down the country, as excess death numbers are skyrocketing in the post pandemic period.

So what has happened in Hull (I think), is that this business has taken advantage of a huge surge in people signing up for no-frills cremations, and then fallen foul of a huge number of people dying at a much faster rate than would ordinarily been the case. Which would not be a problem, unless, unless, unless.......the crematorium services in the region were then themselves swamped by the increased demand, to the point where they themselves could not cope, and the waiting times in the funeral homes had to by necessity, be increased and increased as the problem got worse.

So in the homes, the bodies are piling in at an elevated rate. They have to accept them because they are contractually bound to do so. They can't get them out to the crematorium fast enough to balance the inflow, and the people whose loved ones are waiting for cremation are beginning to get fractious. And the conditions are set for a scandalous situation to develop, where, just because "it can't hurt just this once, can it?", works once, then it happens again, and again, as the crisis develops and the bottleneck gets worse.

So here's the story you aren't going to get from the media. This is down to those excess deaths that the government are pretending aren't happening. The ones that they are changing the way in which excess deaths are calculated in order to cover up their existence. Because no-one wants to know the reason behind them, because they already know that it would be explosive and the beginning of the end for them, for the whole bloody system that foisted the faux pandemic and the gene-therapy (not) vaccines on us. The collateral damage caused by closing down our NHS, of stopping the usual processes of detection and treatment of cancers, of heart conditions. No. No-one wants this story to be investigated, to come out into the open. But like leaking water in a damn, you stop the story in one place and it simply breaks out somewhere else.

So there you have it. Breaking news ala Peter's Press. You heard it here first!

(And as an aside, I was interested to learn that Andrew Bridgen, an outspoken MP demanding in the House of Commons (to no effect) that the excess deaths situation be acknowledged and investigated, has written to the Met Chief Constable, requesting a meeting with himself and twenty of the most acknowledged experts in the various medical and scientific fields, to hear claims of a possible criminal cover-up pertaining to the situation. Alleging intimidation and deliberate falsification, manslaughter and even possibly murder, Bridgen has thrown a gauntlet down that will be difficult to ignore. He is a Member of Parliament who has a platform from which such a request must be taken seriously, if our system is to retain even the slightest of pretence that it functions on the basis of the rule of law. If his concerns are not heeded, his request not responded to, then we can only conclude that our governance has strayed so far from the path of normal democratic functioning, that it is no-longer fit to hold the title of a democracy. When the rule of law is abandoned at a whim for political expediency, you are not on the verge of entering into a totalitarian state - you are effectively already deep within it. Let's hope that this is a fear that is unjustified and that Bridgen's request will be treated with the respect that it deserves. I await the results with interest. )

[peter]

Michael Gove, the Levelling Up Secretary, is currently working on a new definition of what constitutes extremism, and this has elicited a dual warning from both the Archbishops of Canterbury and York that he risks "vilification of the wrong people" as well as threatening freedom of speech and worship.

Neither of which will worry Mr Gove I imagine; he is adept at presenting himself as a reasonable and moderate individual but has a history of strong anti-Muslim activities, including the destruction of the career of Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, David Cameron's appointed Minister of State for Faith and Communication, who was tasked with improvement of intercommunal relations and understanding.

But what I find interesting is to look at the definition of extremism as it currently stands. Defined as "vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs."

Leaving aside the issue of how the concept of extremism is being conflated with that of terrorism - and the two things are by no means the same thing - by our government and media, it's the extent to which our own administration seems to satisfy the conditions necessary for being labelled extremist, that I find fascinating.

The recent comments of certain Conservative Party members, but more specifically ministers within the government, would certainly qualify as vocal opposition, in terms of their respect and toleration of Islam (take the words of Suella Braverman and Lee 30p Anderson as examples - granted, both out of government, and Anderson, the party altogether - but the words that were spoken by both whilst still in government would equally suffice). When it comes to active opposition of democracy one barely knows where to start. The curtailment of the right to gather without prior consent, to march, to protest. The illegal proroguement of Parliament, the extension of 'snoopers charters' in the introduction of rights of the security services to infiltrate private correspondence and communications on the Internet. The security and policing bills that extended the rights of stop and search to any policeman at any time, with or without sufficient cause or reason being cited. And this doesn't include the specific cases of infringement of liberty: the holding of Julian Assange without trial or conviction, the arresting of individuals for simply the holding of placards outside of courtrooms, one lady arrested at the recent Gaza peace marches arrested for "hissing" at the police.

And the "rule of law"? We have seen how much respect our administrations of late have had for the rule of law. I cite above how MP Andrew Bridgen is fighting for this very rule to be applied to the situation pertaining to the excess deaths that currently pertain in this post pandemic period, and we'll see how far he gets with that. During the post Brexit negotiations a minister of the Crown stood in the House of Commons itself and said that the government intended to "break the law in a limited and specific way" in order to achieve its desired ends. This is how our governments hold the rule of law to be inviolable.

And during the pandemic; the confinement of people within their homes, the refusal of people to see their dying loved ones, the pressurising of people to take untried experimental medical interventions, the consequences of which are mounting in evidence but are still being ignored by our oh so upright state. Is all of this in line with our "fundamental British values" then?

I mean seriously. I'm struggling with this subject not because of a dearth of material that demonstrates how extremist our government is by its own definition, but because I'm literally drowning in it. I can't simply see the wood for the trees.

But again, Gove won't care a jot about that. Our little tyrant in the making will be beavering away, not concerning himself one jot with considerations of whether he qualifies himself, under the definition that he labours to prepare with which to yoke the rest of us. He is sublimely confident that those who fall under the hammer of his definition will be only those who he and his ilk want to fall under it. But equally he is convinced that his net will be all encompassing, and that if it is desired that an individual or group be labelled as extremist then it will be so!

So step forward Jeremy Corbyn, you're an extremist! Step forward Charlotte Church, you're an extremist! Step forward Baroness Warsi, you're an extremist! Step forward you Archbishops of Canterbury, anyone who protests against the killing in Gaza, the siphoning off of public money to feather the nests of your mates, the selling of political influence in the lobby system, the stashing away of millions in tax havens abroad. Step forward anyone who questions the accrual of the nation's wealth in the hands of the elite few while the bulk of people slide into poverty, step forward anyone who thinks our politicians should be bound to the service of their constituents or even bound to speaking the truth when they stand up in parliament......

In fact step forward all of you, c'mon, all of you! Because you're all fucking extremists - the lot of you!

[Avatar]

My dear fellow...the real problem is that they're claiming that democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs are "fundamental British values."

--A

[peter]

Absolutely Av.

I mean, WTF! Those are certainly values, but British values? It's been a long time since we could place any claim on any of them as the values we hold to.

It beggars belief that this stuff is reported in serious media outlets without them ever raising the point that if you are going to define extremism as opposition to fundamental British values, then you have also to have a definition of what these are to refer to in your assessment of the former. And the moment you do so, that definition itself becomes subject to scrutiny, at which point (assuming the inclusion of the qualities it {and you} list above) it immediately falls laughably flat on its face.

Led by Donkeys, or what!

[peter]

Now let's have a look.

A Conservative Party donor is shown to have historically said in a meeting that the sight of Labour MP Diane Abbot's face makes him want to hate all black women and that he thinks that she should be shot.

Accepting that these comments were probaby made with a degree of hyperbole, it's still embarrassing for Sunak and it didn't help that Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands Andy Street (with a carefully hidden cynical eye to the increasement of his own good-boy image at the expense of Sunak's, who he'd actually like to replace) immediately said that he'd return the 10 million quid donation that the PM had said he'd hang on to. It makes Sunak look like the typical 'Nasty Tory' sitting aside Street's 'Good Tory' counterpart.

Also the situation gives Stamer the chance to demand that the PM call out the remarks as racist (I don't actually think that they were - more just deeply offensive to Abbot than anything else), which he cannot of course do - at least not if he's going to keep the money, which Tory Central HQ will most definitely want him to do. Frank Hester, the donor in question, supplies over twenty percent of the Tory Party's election war-chest after all, so not to be handed back in a hurry. (Don't suppose the peerage he'll have been hoping to buy himself will be coming any time soon though.)

But it's a piss and wind story - nothing in it of importance to anyone other than the deeply insulted Abbot and the political point-scoring leader of the opposition, so let's move on.

Returning to my post of yesterday, the new definition of extremism has now been unveiled and I suppose (having made such a fuss about it ) I ought to copy it out. So here goes:

Under the new definition, which comes into force today, extremism is

"The promotion or advancement of an ideology based on hatred, violence or intolerance, that aims to

1. Negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others; or

2. Undermine, overturn or replace the UK's system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights; or

3. Intentionally create a permissive environment for others to achieve the results in (1) or (2)."

Well, let's have a look at this.

Certainly our lot have been insidiously fostering an environment in which the othering of vulnerable minorities has been a feature - think of Sunak and the media's absolute fixation on the small boats, illegal immigrants (all Muslim, a few Albanian mobsters aside), and now the demonisation of the peace marches which attempt to highlight the plight of the Palestinian people alongside drawing attention to the carnage of Gaza.

"Negate the freedoms of others." This government has introduced more questionable legislation in this regard than any other in our history. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act of 2022 was in itself, one of the most anti-liberal pieces of legislation ever to pass through our statute books. The public order acts of the covid period remain in place and never in our history has it been harder to exercise our democratic right to protest (going right back through our history from the opposition to the corn laws, through the suffragettes, the Labour Marches, CND, the anti-war marches of the Gulf War period) and gather to express our public will. Now permission must be sought, without which heavy penalties will be imposed, and with which, strict limitations such as the activities allowed and routes marches must follow, will be imposed - if indeed, marches are allowed at all (there is talk of placing limits on movement such that gatherings must remain in one place, clearly imposing severe limitations on their impact).

"Undermine the UK's system of liberal parliamentary democracy." There is, you will notice, no mention of simply undermining democracy. It's specifically the UK's system of liberal parliamentary democracy. This is in itself telling. The UK's system of democracy has only ever paid lip-service to the concept even from day one of its acceptance. It was grudgingly accepted by the Tories with lukewarm enthusiasm at best, and only then having been fused with the kind of paternalistic oversight with which the ruling classes always believed were their own particular right to exercise. The degree to which democracy still exists in the UK, even in truncated form, is debatable at best. Can democracy still be said to pertain in a system where vested interest can lobby for and control what legislation is passed, where the whip system can ensure that MPs can never vote with their consciences, but must always, on pain of destroying their political careers, vote as they are instructed to do so by their party leadership? In a place where there is a revolving-door between the media and the political establishment, where shadowy interests which control the former, ensure that only compliant partners are ever allowed to attain power within the latter? Where the telling of truth within the very halls where the law is made has become an optional extra, an ideal to be looked to when circumstances permit it, but an annoyance to be ignored with impunity when it becomes troublesome to personal or party interest? I suppose that the rule of law would be included in this bit, but clearly the writers didn't want to trouble themselves with specific mention of this in case it came back to haunt them when they, for their own reasons, decided that observance of it was an unnecessary block to their intentions.

And finally we have this "Intentionally creating a permissive environment" for the above. I suppose this would be the one that I'd be caught on. Nice and loose, it allows for plenty of scope to ensure that anyone who is being troublesome, drawing attention to the activities of our movers and shakers in such a way as to cause them embarrassment, to make life difficult for them, can be bundled in as an extremist. By simply commenting, by holding their feet to the fire, you are "creating the environment" whereby you fall foul of the other two. Luckily I'd be in good(?) company: every journalist of integrity (granted, a pretty rare species these days) would be in the cell alongside me.

And thus is Gove's intention fulfilled. Basically, if they want to label you as extremist, you're in. Not significant (as yet) to people like me (but I await the day.....), but highly so for people and organisations that have by necessity, to communicate with state agencies or might depend on central or local financing to pursue their community activities. The moral of this story will be, "Don't be Muslim, don't be involved in support of immigrants, don't be anything other than true-blue Conservative in your political outlook (luckily for Labour, that includes most of them these days), or you won't get a look in. It's not in fairness 'Jackboots at the door' time, but remember, you can get away with almost anything if like bologna, you slice it thinly enough.

And even if this is not your intention, have no fear - there's a Suella Braverman or a Nigel Farage or a Robert Jenrick out there who will be perfectly cognisant of the possibilities. Authoritarianism doesn't come stomping in the front door, it slips in slowly through the side entrance, when the particular permissive environment has been created in advance. Because that's exactly what Mr Gove has achieved with his new definition.

So well done Michael - caught in your own nasty little trap on day one of its unveiling!

[peter]

Don't exactly know what is going on in Ukraine, but it doesn't sound good.

There's a dearth of news these days on the ongoing conflict, now into its (what) third year? But such news as does filter through, despite our media having lost interest in the conflict as a result of the Israel-Gaza massacre and ongoing domestic issues, surrounds increasingly dug-in Russian forces, prepared for the long-haul and falling morale on the Ukrainian side, with troop exhaustion and increasingly desperate use of ever wider age cohorts and gender groups to fill the gaps left by dead or incapacitated combatants no longer available on the front line.

Today's front page of the FT has a small piece on the ongoing attempts of the Zelensky government to legislate to reduce the age of conscription from 27 to 25, which reports that angry scenes have resulted as critics argue against the youth of the country being sent away to war.

Zelensky has recently issued death figures for the conflict to date, as being 31,000 soldiers killed in action, but unofficial estimates put the figure at at least double this, while some commentators believe it to be considerably more again. It is not normal practice to issue death figures during the prosecution of hostilities, it being understood that the negative psychological effects of these will inevitably damage morale and future support for the war, but Zelensky was pretty much forced into making his statement because of rumours that the death toll had reached into the hundreds of thousands. No doubt the total death toll - Russian, Ukrainian and civilian - is approaching these levels, but clearly Zelensky is not going to acknowledge this in the face of his ongoing problems.

But other equally unpleasant rumours are coming out of Ukraine. Dark talk of arrests and midnight knocks on the doors being experienced by anybody foolish enough to voice any opposition to the ongoing war and its inordinate costs to the country and its people. Aged individuals and pregnant women being used on the front lines and sinking popularity for the Zelensky position of victory at any price up to and including the complete destruction of the country - talk of these abounds alongside increasing understanding that this is a war that cannot be won. The West has proven itself to be a fickle allie, certainly not prepared to commit ground troops to the fray and increasingly reticent to continue stumping up huge sums of money for armaments in support of a war which seems to have no end in sight. In the face of this, Zelensky's commitment of the youth and resources of the country to this conflict is beginning to look unrealistic.

And he will have taken small comfort from Biden's words of support during his State of the Nation speech a few days ago. Biden mechanically pushed out his strident message to Putin, "We will not abandon Ukraine!", while behind the scenes the US is preparing to do just that. America will leave Ukraine just as it left Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan when the cost of these foreign adventures became too high to maintain, and at this point Zelensky will be toast. He knows it and has nothing left to loose (well - knowing the way that failed politicians can be dealt with in the Eastern European countries of the former Soviet block, perhaps that's not quite true). He must continue fighting or throw in the towel on his own premiership.

So no, probably best that Ukraine is left to slip slowly out of the public consciousness here in the West; best not that the fickle nature of our administrations become too exposed under the spotlight of ongoing media attention. Least said, soonest mended. Except for the dead and maimed victims of this pointless conflict. They are either lost forever ir beyond the point of mending, now or at any point in the future.

Contrary to what our leaders told us at the beginning of this debacle, Russia is not the militarily weak pushover that we were led to believe it was. They are geared for the long haul in this in ways which we in the West, with our crashing economies and domestic political travails, cannot begin to match.

Realpolitik. I thought that the Americans were supposed to be the big one's for this? Odd that you have to come to some arse-end corner of Kevin's Watch in order to hear it.

[peter]

Here we (might) go again.

Panicked by poll figures that put them 20 points behind Labour as they approach the general election, tories are gathering themselves into a cabal to mount a challenge to the Sunak premiership and replace him with the middle-of-the-road candidate Penny Mordaunt, who you may remember, didn't do too badly in the last Conservative leadership election following the dethronement of Liz Truss.

Morduant, who would not be the right-wingers natural choice for leader, is nevertheless the candidate who has been fixed on, as a result it is suggested, of an approach by some more moderate Tory members, suggesting that they join forces (as it were) to attempt to stave off electoral armageddon when the country returns to the polls. Right-wingers have cautiously accepted Mordaunt, provided she 'beef up' on some of her more 'woke' (as they see it) positions, essentially taking the lead from them as to the way her platform is presented. There is no mention of how Mordaunt herself sees all of this activity, but being a Tory, it's a given that she'll be relishing the possibility that her time might have come. The natural vanity of the Conservative animal will mean that she will automatically see herself as better suited to the job of leading the party into the next election, saving the party Boudicca like, from electoral annihilation, and running the country thereafter, and to be fair looking at Sunak........perhaps she has a point.

The idea is that should Sunak face an automatic vote on his leadership by virtue of the 54 letters of no confidence being passed, then Mordaunt will be crowned leader by Conservative MPs by coronation, rather than by having to have a divisive leadership contest right before an election. Mordaunt is unlikely to win a general election given the almost impossible uphill battle she would face (anything over a twelve point lead is considered pretty much an impossible task to overturn), but she might not loose it so badly. Also, the choice of Mordaunt over say Badenoch or Braverman (both very much more right wing than Mordaunt, and to the right wing of the parliamentary MPs liking) demonstrates an understanding of the Conservative (and British more generally) electorate. Because the truth is, that these other two are not only right wing (which the electorate don't much like, preferring centrist candidates), but they are coloured. And like it or not, as the failure of Sunak to be elected leader of the Conservative Party showed, Conservative Party voters are not ready to vote for a coloured person, no matter how good at dog-whistle politics, or how right wing they are. This is just an unspoken truth.

One fly in the ointment from Mordaunt's perspective is that if she did manage to steal Sunak's crown just before the election, and then went on to lead the Conservative Party to an at least respectable loss (say a small Labour majority) rather than an electoral wipeout, would the Party be prepared to leave her in situ to lead a future election challenge from opposition? Or would they immediately hold a leadership contest proper, in which she might well fall to a stronger candidate. A Conservative leader needs time in opposition to get their ducks in a row, and time is the one thing that Mordaunt does not have.

And what of Sunak - what does he make of all of this?

The truth is he really doesn't matter anymore. He's had his go, and in truth, never really found his mojo. I don't think the truth is that he ever really wanted the job once the Conservative Party membership had shown that they didn't want him as leader. They chose Liz Truss - Liz fucking Truss - over him, and this will have struck the vain little man pretty hard. He never really forgave them for that and I think he'd be glad to go tomorrow if he could. He's heading into a fight that he's guaranteed to loose, and he has no heart for it. California beckons and he's not a man who likes loosing (he's never lost anything in his life prior to the Conservative leadership contest), so given the choice, I don't think he'd even stay around for the election.

So we'll exchange a man who doesn't want to lead the country for a woman who won't be able to. She'll be replaced by a man who can't be trusted as far as you can throw him, and following that by a right wing nutter who'll bring the country to its ruin.

The next twelve years in a nutshell and if you think about it, pretty much a repeat of the last twelve as well. A case of history repeating itself or a downward death spiral. You decide.

[peter]

(Continued from above, but freestanding if you get me.)

Did anyone else see that 'hot mic' incident with Biden following his state of the nation speech?

Surrounded by congratulatory politicians and in the presence of Blinken and one or two others, he was being pressed to keep up the pressure on Netanyahu in respect of improvement of the humanitarian situation in Gaza. He said that he was going to "sit down with Bibi," (his 'pet name' for the Israeli President apparently) and have a "Come to Jesus" talk with him.

Did you get that; a "Come to Jesus" talk. With Benjamin Netanyahu.

Truly bizarre comment from the 'leader of the free world', by any standards, and made even more outlandish by virtue than when he was informed his microphone was still on, he replied, "Good."

I don't know if Biden is truly loosing it, but irrespective, I'm reminded of the maxim about life imitating art. Remember that great scene from the Dolly Parton classic, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, in which the slippery Governor of the same, buttonholed by a reporter on his views on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, replies, "I believe it's time the Jews and the Ayrabs sat down and settled their differences in a Christian manner!"

Absolutely brilliant. Charles Durning - you have my gratitude!

-----0-----

Here's something that seems to have slipped in and out of the news with barely a ripple breaking the surface; didn't I read somewhere that China and Russia have agreed on a joint venture to build a space-station on the moon?

I've got no beef with this - fill your boots, I say - but I'm just suprised that our media, never slow in pointing out the Machiavellian plots of either country on their own, should be so sanguine about this proposed joint project. I mean, what exactly will they be doing up there? Hatching Nazi zombies in a great big nursery, ready for an earthly invasion? Preparing a Dr Evil style super-ray to burn up Western cities unless they are paid a sum of (mwoah-ha-ha!) a million pounds! Surely our media should be on it like a car bonnet? How is it they've missed this one?

-----0-----

Finally, shout out to the Daily Star for their front page headline, "Mystery of the Rampant Beavers."

Turns out that a troop of beavers (what's the collective for beavers anyone?) have moved into a nature reserve in Cornwall (my neck of the woods), and no-one knows where they have come from.

It's not like beavers move in packs across the country every day of the week, so it's a bit of a mystery how they have sprung up where they are. As they have a better reputation for managing rivers and waterways than we do, their presence can only be a good thing, but all good reasonable thinking aside, this wasn't really what caught my eye with the story.

The bald truth is I just liked the related 'Star thought for the day' that runs each day on the red-top banner of the paper; it reads, "Why does just saying the word 'beaver' cheer you up?"

Not 'arf! Count me in!

[Savor Dam]

The most common collective noun for a group of beavers is colony or lodge.

[peter]

I'll admit SD, I'd come up with a couple of alternative ideas that were too near the knuckle for even me to suggest.



-----0-----

Who comes up with these ridiculous names for training exercises and operations etc in Nato and the like. 'Operation Steadfast Defender.' That's the latest cringe inducing moniker being used for the training exercise in Poland (or whatever it is - most likely in fact a warning to the Ruskies that "We're on your doorstep pals: don't forget it!"

What absolute bollocks! Nato will stomp around shaking its collective fist and puffing its pigeon chest out for ever and a day, but as for going to war, I have to remember what I heard an American general (retired) saying on the radio the other day. These are cosmetic armies. Designer armies that would crumble like sandcastles the moment they encountered any half competent battle-hardened divisions such as the Russians are capable of putting in the field. The French, he said (in reference to President Macron's recent comments about 'boots on the ground') are about capable of going on safari outings in North Africa, but not much more. As for the rest, the closest any of them has been to a real combat situation is playing Call of Duty on a computer screen. Outside the office they wouldn't last a minute.

Still, I suppose that they have to do something to earn their keep, and putting on a show in Poland under a puffed up and pretentious name is better than nothing. As for Ukraine, the closest we'll get to steadfastly defending them is by opening our collective chequebook to them a couple more times before we abandon them to their fate. As the General said, all that remains now is to determine where the annexation lines will be drawn on what territory will pass to the Russians, and what will be left for the rump-Ukraine that will be left.

A sad end to a completely unnecessary and avoidable conflict.

-----0-----

The Sunday Times are making a big thing about Boris Johnson being paid consultancy fees by a hedge fund for his trip to Venezuela last week, and the fact that he travelled by private jet.

So what? He's a private individual. What's he supposed to do - provide his services for nothing? He was by accounts, on an unofficial visit for the UK foreign office, who do not recognise the Venezuelan administration of President Maduro, to try to bring to the President some suggestions that might help his country 're-enter the fold', so to speak.

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me - a good idea even. Johnson has presence in the world, and can be a useful envoy to go to places that the government itself cannot go. But there's no call for him to do it for free. That's for the birds and the Sunday Times knows it. They're just hoping to whip up a story out of nothing on the back of Johnson's perceived disgrace in the UK establishment. I'll bet that the Tory Party backbench MPs are wishing that he was leading them into the next election as we speak. Johnson could have killed it for them, but they brought him down over his supposed disgrace for not obeying covid rules he knew were totally pointless and that no-one else was obeying either.

-----0-----

The Sunday Telegraph tells us of a report that says our MPs are being exposed to a high number of incidents and "threats of menace" by pro-Palestinian activists, such that many of them are feeling unsafe and in need of police protection as they carry out their daily activities.

Well, it's not threat on the same scale as those in Gaza live under, and whose situation our elected representatives could assist in changing, were they to adopt a different tactic in dealing with Israel, but let that go. The truth is that being heckled, being bombarded with emails, suffering protest at the various functions they attend, is part of the job. It goes with the territory. This isn't to excuse or condone any threat of violence and intimidatory behaviour, but how many of these so called incidents actually involve that? An abusive e-mail isn't nice, certainly, but it isn't a threat as such. If it contains a threat of violence, hand it to the police and let them deal with it. And even so, recognise that studies of violent actions against elected representatives demonstrate that the individuals who write such threats are rarely, if ever, the ones who actually resort to such tactics.

And in any case, are our politicians just getting a bit too soft, too easily daunted by the job they are doing. I come from a time when our politicians lived under real threat. The threat of IRA bombs and shootings around the corner at all times. MPs killed outside Westminster itself in car bombs, a close relation to the Queen herself blown up on a boat. Good God, the PM herself was nearly killed in a hotel in Brighton and stood up and gave a talk to Conference hours later. This was real threat, and yet there was none of the whining and complaining that these paper-thin individuals treat us to. At no point was there a media outcry at the risk they were putting themselves under.

But in fairness to the MPs themselves, this isn't what it's really about is it? Because in truth it's a diversionary tactic of shifting our attentions away from what is going down in Gaza, what our administration and opposition are endorsing and even enabling, and in the face of clear and mounting evidence that crimes against humanity are being commited and that we are complicit in facilitation them.

But leaving this aside (though God knows, it's the most important aspect), against the historical backdrop I outline above, excuse me if I don't join in the communal hand-wringing orgy in support of our poor beleaguered politicians that the Telegraph would have us indulge in. Facing the public and being held to account by them, brutal as it might sometimes be, is part of the job. If you can't stand the heat, then either act to recognise the will of the huge majority of the British public and put pressure on the government to begin pressing for an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian relief operation, or step out of the kitchen and let someone else more in tune with the public mood take up the mantle instead.

-----0-----

"Key Nato ally Latvia," ( ), says the Telegraph, is pressing us to introduce conscription of 18-20 year old's, for a mandatory 11 month period of national service, in order to prepare a 'citizen army' ready to take up the mantle of bringing the fight to Vladimir Putin, should he decide to get even more acquisitive in the coming years.

I don't personally think he's going to, but looking at the callow pimpley examples of our 'yoof' that come into the shop in their droves every night, I can't help but think that an extended period of sharp discipline and physical activity that doesn't involve their wrists and thumbs, mightn't do them the power of good.

So yes, drag 'em all off to boot camp by all means. But don't send them off to face Putin's army of battle toughened soldiers in some misguided attempt to reassert Western dominance in a world that doesn't want it any more. Even they don't deserve that!

[peter]

Embattled Rishi Sunak tells us this morning that, "This is the year that Britain will bounce back!", that, "There is a real sense that the economy is turning the corner."

What world is he living in? Is he pissed? On drugs?

Growth, just about the most important indicator of economic performance, is static, hovering at around 0.1 percent (essentially flatlining), compared to the 2 or3 percent of previously considered moderately okay years. National debt is at an all time high and interest payments on the same are drawing the teeth of any fiscal planning before it even starts. Investment is similarly stagnant and try as Kemi Badenoch will, the truth is that no one with any money to invest will touch us with a barge pole. Why would they? The huge market of the EU sits just twenty miles away, but they couldn't hurdle the barriers that we have thrown up between ourselves and them even if they wanted to. So they go there instead. The projection of the Institute for Fiscal Studies or someone predicts a 20 billion pound black hole in our in respect of government spending, rising to 40 if some are to be believed. The wealth gap between rich and poor is at its widest since the Victorian era and getting more pronounced by the day. Tens if not hundreds of thousands, are living on the brink of loosing their homes in the face of staggering mortgage increases and businesses are going bankrupt at a faster rate than at virtually any time in our history. Employment levels are okay, but the jobs on offer are crap and the wages earned only subsistence level at best. People are depressed and despondent. So just which fucking corner is it that we are turning Sunak?

And as if to give the lie to the PM's words, even his own party spent the weekend plotting to pull the spoilt little tit down, preparing to hoist the Brittania-esque Penny Mordaunt into his seat (all she needs is the gladiatorial helmet and the shield and she could sit for a new coin minting tomorrow). But she modestly refused to have anything to do with their speculations. Carefully refusing to deny any possibility of truth in their plotting, she was "simply concerned with getting on with the job." Of course she was. Like any true Conservative ideologue, she'd cut her mother's throat for two bits plus tax. Give her one sniff that such a plot might work she'd be on Sunak's back like a leather clad extra in a Mad Max cage-fighting scene. The pipsqueak wouldn't stand a chance.

But Sunak will nevertheless try this week to half-heartedly fight his corner. Downing Street (ie his PM's team in the corner) expect him to maintain the show of at least pretending he wants to continue in the job (he doesn't - he hates it, hates the country and the people, and can't wait to see the back of it/us), and so he'll get up, make a speech telling us that crap is cream, and then go stand before his MPs in the 1922 Committee rooms and attempting to 'rally the troops'. How dull it will be. They're fucked. He knows that they're fucked and so do they. Ten percent of them aren't even bothering to stand for re-election because they know that they haven't got a cat in hell's chance of being successful. The rest of them are only standing because they have safe seats or frankly, no other jobs to go to. This Tory run at sitting in the driving seat is over and they know it. Penny Mordaunt could perform burlesque on the frikkin' Ant and Dec Show on a Saturday night and it wouldn't make any difference. Whether they will ever recover depends on how badly they are beaten, if the remaining dregs of the party after the election bloodbath can hold together or whether it will split, and how well the Farage vehicle of Reform UK do at the polls. Personally, I hope they are given the drubbing of a lifetime such that they shrink to the level of the Lib-dems or lower. You want them around in a squirming miserable sort of way, so that you can aim a kick at them if they come too near or just because you feel like it - but no more than that.

And talking of the Lib-dems, don't bother.

News is, to round it all up, that Farage might step up to lead Reform UK in a fanfare of publicity before the general election - a sort of 'enter stage left' to a fanfare, following the Richard Tice warmup act. Could be fun if it happens, and damn, it would break the two party system if Reform actually did well. And that is a consummation devoutly to be wished, is it not?

[peter]

A couple of weeks ago we were treated to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt doing daylight robbery on Labour's proposed policy of taxing non-doms to raise a few billions for the Exchequer - and doing it openly in the actual budget speech itself no less - and today, not to be beaten, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves will unveil her economic thinking, emphasising her commitment to business profit as the chief engine behind a successful economy and a policy of supply side reform to drive up growth, as last proposed by the Conservative's less than successful Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng.

Which all lends weight to the argument that what we essentially have these days is a UniParty, swapping and stealing policies from each other at will, with no significant difference across a broad range of their thinking. The degree of crossover between our two main political parties is now such that they can pick and choose from each other's economic policies without encountering any significant ideological problems, which incidentally, gives the electorate about as much choice as the Russians enjoyed in their recent elections.

Reeves will today deliver the annual Mais Lecture in the City of London, in which she will do her absolute damndest to convince the business and financial community that their interests are safe in her hands, and that profit, profit, profit, will be central to her thinking, just as it has been for the Conservative Party for the last 14 years. She will absolutely eschew anything of the economic thinking of the Corbyn years, and embrace wholeheartedly the Blair model of business cooperation and low taxation that ushered him into power in 1997.

Which is all very well - I'm not arguing that business profit is not an important.....the most important thing in a country's ability to generate taxes with which to pay for public services - but it doesn't do very much for people who are struggling in the here and now, today, who are facing devastating changes in their lives if they loose the houses they live in, the services they depend on. Something has to be done to deal with this pressing here and now, as well as looking to the longer term improvements that are required. And there is precious little sign that Reeves has much to say on this score.

Or rather, what she does say is not encouraging. Because she and Stamer are already committed not to raise taxes on the wealthiest in our society, the single place where the imbalance in wealth that has developed in our society may begin to be adressed - and immediately. A simple expedient of increasing taxation on unearned income from investments and equity holdings, only up to the same levels as basic income tax, could generate billions in revenue, for spending on public services, for injecting money back into the lower level of society from whence it has been cumulatively leached for the past 14 years. Closure of tax loopholes that allow tax avoidance on an epic scale as multiple billions of pounds are salted away in tax havens beyond the reach of the tax-man, introduction of a realistic progressive tax system reflective of the huge disparity of income, where a small proportion of the nation enjoys a hugely disproportionate share of the income - these are all the areas that can absolutely be used to help in the here and now, and yet the workers own party, formed by the very trade unions that they now regard with contempt (in favour of courting the business community) will not look at them.

But make no mistake, as the screw tightens, if Labour will not grasp this nettle and begin to look to the interests of the masses as opposed to the minted few, then someone else will. The public loyalty to the two parties has been longstanding and deep - but it is not bottomless. As more and more fall under the hammer of the tightening economic screws, the public mood will shift and if Labour doesn't shift with it then they will be out. Sooner or later a party that keys into this public need for governance to look to its interests, and plays on it will emerge, be it the Workers Party (too much left wing bad public perception about it at present, but this could change) or Reform (ditto right wing), and will sweep to power (much as the Labour Party did in its early days). Stamer will get this and once in power, will change chameleon like, into something other than what people voted for. He'll do whatever is necessary to get into power (ie courting the business community today) and to stay there (switching to high spend, high taxation policies at a later point). This is how the man works. It's practical and meets a current necessity in order to succeed, but it has little honour about it, and you can't like the man for following it.

-----0-----

Self censored part of the Post.

You'll never know what it was, but it was a cracker!

( )

[peter]

Nasty little piece in the Telegraph this morning that I think I'll quote in full (which incidentally, is a pain in the arse, because when you use the quotation symbol, the words you type in between the markers on the posting board, if you are using predictive text, don't come out separately. You then have to manually do this to prevent the whole lot appearing as one frikkin great word).

Anyway.......

Kosovo calls on British troops for protection.

Britain should send more troops to Kosovo to prevent war in the Western Balkans, its leader has indicated. There is only a symbolic Nato presence and it will not be enough to prevent an invasion by Serbia, Albin Kurti told the Telegraph. The Prime Minister's remarks came after Aleksander Vucic, the President of Serbia, hinted at an attempt to recapture Kosovo earlier this week, stating, Belgrade will, "wait for the best possible momentum [sic], and we will seize our opportunity."

Now if that doesn't make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up then nothing will.

The wars following the break up of Yugoslavia between the Western Baltic states were as brutal and uncompromising as anything seen in Europe before. Ethnic cleansings and genocide, mass slaughters, brutal rape and torture as instruments of war policy - they were all there. The peace that has held since the end of the wars in 2001 has been fragile to say the least. Can you imagine where Nato would find itself were a re-emergence of conflict in this region to overlap with the ongoing hostilities in Ukraine? It doesn't bear thinking about, so let's not.

-----0-----

I've just finished a book on the history of Israel between the period of the Six Days War of 1967 and the disengagement policy of 2007(?), and in fairness it's been an eye-opener.

What have I learned.

Firstly, that the situation is far from black and white. Israel has tried - really tried - on many occasions to bring about peace between itself and its difficult neighbours, and the Americans for their part have also tried hard to bring about this end. There has been times when a really good settlement has been absolutely within striking distance only for it to evaporate under the weight of a 'small' difference. (The administration of Jerusalem is a hurdle of almost insurmountable proportions, even when all other issues are resolved, as an example.)

But throughout the period, a key factor in stoking resentment has been Israel's heavy-handed handling of any and every situation it has been faced with. Always but always, it seems that they have used a sledgehammer when a tack hammer would have sufficed. Example; the use of destruction of people's homes as a punishment for involvement in protesting activities within the occupied territories. Literally. The court pronounces that your punishment is to have your house raised to the ground by bulldozers. And you and your family are left sitting on a pile of rubble.

I'm serious. It seems that right from the get-go, Israeli desire to see a peaceful resolution to the Palestinian problem has been hampered by their inability to see things from the side of the dispossessed indigenous population, and their propensity to overreact on any and every occasion. The current situation in Gaza is absolutely another key example of this. Nothing but nothing could justify what is being done to the Gazan population as we speak, no amount of rationalising it against the events of October 7th. And in reading this book (Cursed Victory by Ahron Bregman), I am hugely depressed by the sheer scale of what is going down, as compared to any of the earlier events in either Gaza, or the West Bank. I listen to Bregman referring to instances where a few dozen or a hundred deaths were seen as unmitigated tragedy (which of course they are) - but now we are talking deaths and destruction on a scale unimaginable even to a chronicler such as he was. (Which in itself has to make one believe that this is in Netanyahu's eyes, the endgame as far as Gaza goes. That he really intends to see it emptied of Palestinians.)

Perhaps the whole bloody mess is best summed up by thinking of the words of legendary Israeli soldier and politician, Moshe Dayan. He said, "If I could choose to be occupied by any country in the world, it would not be Israel."

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I've been pretty skeptical about the idea that the Tories will replace Sunak before the next election, in an attempt to head off the much predicted drubbing that everyone seems convinced they are going to recieve, but suddenly the notion doesn't seem quite so farfetched.

What has changed my mind is a poll of Conservative backbench MPs that shows that support for the PM's continued leadership is pretty thin at best.

The poll, reported in today's Telegraph, has just 45 percent thinking that Sunak is the man who should lead them into battle in the coming months. Some 37 percent already believe that he should be replaced, with the rest being undecided.

This is a pretty minimal level of support to say the least, and given that the local elections in May might deliver a pre-general election slapdown, it's entirely possible that the PM's thin support might at this point, evaporate altogether. If the results are really bad, then it could indeed be game over, and given that Sunak doesn't even want the job anymore, you can't help but thinking that it wouldn't take much to get him to cut and run.

Taking this into account, we might yet see some more Tory shenanigans in May, prior (I'd guess) to an immediate election being called by the new leader. Tom Tugendhat has been mooted alongside Penny Mordaunt as another possible contender for the leadership, but the Tories won't want a gruelling leadership battle just before an election because of the divisions within the party that it would expose. But it's hard to see how one could be avoided with two potential contenders, and this alone might be the saving of Sunak. Indeed the suggestion of Tugendhat might be nothing more than a ploy to scupper the idea of a simple coronation of Mordaunt, and thereby secure Sunak's position for leader up into the general election. It's the kind of maneuvering that the Tories excel at,so I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case.

Anyway, watch (as they say) this space.

[peter]

Rishi Sunak's Rwanda Bill received fresh drubbing in the House of Lords yesterday, when seven votes on the thing all went against the government.

This will put off any intended departures until June at the earliest, and possibly for longer than this if the bill's opponents have anything to do with it.

The planned deportations were the main subject of the weekly clash between Sunak and Stamer on Wednesday in the House, with Stamer claiming that what had started as a scheme in which the PM had promised thousands of illegal immigrants would be repatriated to the country, had since shrivelled up like a deflating balloon to the point where now a mere 300 were earmarked. Pretty costly per capita price given the plan had already cost the British tax payers hundreds of millions of pounds without a single flight having yet taken off.

Sunak raged back that at least he had a plan to deter the illegal crossings that were a daily occurrence on our English Channel border - the Labour Party he squeaked, had none!

And there's truth in that. Stamer's big plan is to, "Go after the smugglers." He doesn't seem to get that the big boys behind these smuggling operations are thousands of miles away. The clowns that are down in France buying dinghies and oars are just the disposable elements in the smuggling operations, who will be replaced within days of being picked up. They are entirely expendable. It never seems to occur to these people that if we were to open up safe and effective routes of asylum application within the countries from which these people are coming, then they wouldn't need to make the dangerous trip across the world, and ultimately the English Channel, in the first place. But all such routes remain firmly blocked.

But we all know that this policy is just a sop to the racist element within our society, a bit of dog-whistle politics to bring in some return in the form of votes, for all of that 'othering work' that has been going on in the media for years now. The moral panic created in the media about the small boats, whipped up by the PM with his piping pledge to "Stop the Boats!", was no more than a smokescreen to divert attention away from the God-awful bollocks the Conservatives have made of running the country. And it also had the benefit of being transferable into a vote winning policy, drawing in the votes of far-right thinking individuals the length and breadth of the country. (Ironically, the same people who wouldn't vote for a brown Prime Minister as long as they had a hole in their arse - one reason why over of a third of parliamentary Conservatives want shot of Sunak before the country goes to the vote.)

But James Cleverly, the shameless Home Secretary who went to Rwanda to negotiate the final deal following Suella Braverman's ignominious departure from the government, would have it otherwise. Speaking in the aftermath of the Lords votes, he sanctimoniously said that while the Government were trying to save lives by stopping the small boats (ie with the Rwanda deterrent effect - let the fact that this is approximately zilch, seeing as the chances of actually being deported there are also zilch, go - others were standing in their way and helping the smugglers.

Trying to save lives? Trying to save lives? Just how stupid does this fellow think we are? He couldn't give a rat's arse about the lives of the poor benighted people who climb into those boats! If he could he'd be doing anything and everything he could to expedite the process of asylum application, not hinder it by sitting in a government that deliberately closes off all of the legal routes to entry into the country. The only thing that this idiot is interested in is getting the Conservatives back into office once more so that he can continue to enjoy the gravy train that God knows how, he has somehow fallen into. (This is the bloke remember, who joked about using the date-rape drug hypnol on his wife, on the day that he'd elsewhere made a speech on the evils of the substance - and did so in front of a room full of people!) And as is so often the case, he himself has benefited from the very immigration and asylum processes that he now denies to others (his mother being from Sierra Leone).

Don't get me wrong, by all means push for the policies you want to pass the House, but spare us the cod-lachrymosal utterances about saving lives. It's demeaning to you to do it and demeaning to us that you'd think we'd swallow it.

[Avatar]

It never seems to occur to these people that if we were to open up safe and effective routes of asylum application within the countries from which these people are coming, then they wouldn't need to make the dangerous trip across the world, and ultimately the English Channel, in the first place. But all such routes remain firmly blocked.

This.

--A

[peter]

Hi Av! Greetings from sunny Cornwall (raining as usual )

"Labour say 'Time is needed to reflect upon the report' ".

What the fuck is that about? Reflect on what? The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has taken seven years to consider the inappropriate manner in which the statutory age at which women received their state pension was changed, and has reported that they are due compensation. What's to reflect on? The report's conclusions won't change just by sitting looking at them. The only reflecting now needed to be done is to work out how much compensation each woman effected is owed.

This all goes back to 2011, when a change was announced that brought forward the change in state pension payment age for women by two years, to 2018. Upwards of 3.5 million women effected by the change were not informed of it, and suffered serious financial hardship in consequence.

Needless to say the Conservative Ministers who have spoken since the report's findings have come out, have shown little interest in agreeing to comply with its recommendations. They wouldn't, would they - they aren't going to be the ones around to deal with it. But Labour are a different kettle of fish. They are increasingly all but certain to be the ones forming the next government, so you'd think it would behove them to accept the conclusions, and agree to pony up for the compensation at the calculated rate. But they are having none of it. Never missing a trick to alienate a particular section of the population when presented with the opportunity (the Muslims with their refusal to back the Gazan ceasefire, large families with their refusal to remove the two-child cap on child benefit, the left by their purges of left leaning candidates....the list goes on) this time it's women born in the 1950's, who suddenly found themselves not receiving their pensions until two years later than they expected, without having been given sufficient warning in the past. It is estimated that some women would be entitled to as much as 10,000 pounds, but are likely to get 2 to 3 thousand at most. There is little will however, it must be said, for payment of even this level to be made. (Funny that during the pandemic 660 billion pounds of money from the public purse could be found to give to the richest people in the country, but now 10 billion can't be stumped up to right a wrong that affected millions of the less well off people. )

These women are pissed, and so for a change is the popular press. Unlikely to find the Mirror and Mail inagreement on very much, but this morning both seem to think that the women deserve payment. Even the Express is in there.

But righting historic wrongs without digging in and prevaricating is not in the nature of our political system. The longer they wait, the smaller the payout gets as more of the effected women die off. So hold on, shift from foot to foot, whistle and look up at the corner of the room, and reflect.......yes, there's a good word.....reflect.....on what you are going to do. That makes it sound like you are a serious contender for righting this wrong; a 'contemplative' stances what is needed. Reflection will do.

Well this type of perfidious performance is pretty par for the course for Stamer's Labour, but don't be suprised if some of those 3 million women do a bit of reflecting of their own when it comes to ticking the box in the forthcoming general election.

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Interesting bit of collective polling done on Talk Radio the other day in which they assess that taken together, the polls put the Conservatives as only four points ahead of Reform UK, at the present moment. This is a big thing. It means that only a small shift, such as could easily be brought about by a poor performance of the Conservatives in the local government elections in May, would see one of the Big Two parties fall behind a third, not usually considered significant, party, for the first time in like, ever.

Conservative backbench MPs are getting very nervous already. The defection of Lee Anderson to Reform was high profile stuff, and there has been another one since. With a small gap like this and a poor set of local election results, the stream of defections could become a flood. And what you'd then be seeing is not only the end of the Conservative Party, but also the break down of the two party system. And both the Conservative and Labour Parties are terrified by this. What began with the election of George Galloway (granted an independent) could swing towards a party such as Reform (particularly in the so called 'red wall seats' that were 'lent' to Boris Johnson in order to 'get Brexit done') very easily, and our two major parties know it.

These results tell you that people are pissed. They are pissed not only with the Conservative Party who have formed successive governments for the past 14 years, but also with Labour who they are increasingly seeing as part of the same problem. They know that they are being fed little choice between the two major players - so in the absence of one lot failing them, why should the other be any better? Maybe its time to try something else, runs the thinking. Political commentator Owen Jones (okay, not a high profile character, but pretty well known nevertheless) yesterday posted that he was leaving the Labour Party following an adult lifetime's membership. He recommended that people vote according to the dictates of their conscience, rather than out of party loyalty to one or other of the main parties. His reason for leaving was that he simply couldn't any longer support a party who's leadership had strayed so far from the roots of its formation, and had demonstrated its perfidy at every turn, by reneging on every commitment it had made since day one of its elevation.

Undoubtedly, he's absolutely right in this analysis, but I believe the straw that broke the camel's back for Jones was Stamer's stance on Gaza. Fair play to him - it disgusts me too, but I simply don't believe it, any more than I believe anything else that comes out of Stamer's mouth. He's decided, you see, that everything - everything - must be subordinate to winning power and getting into Downing Street. I have no idea if he has any deep political convictions of any kind (was he simply lying when he stood next to Corbyn on the podiums at Conference, clapping his left wing speeches?), or is he just a Boris Johnson facsimile, after power for power's sake, and no more? No one can tell. That's the point. And this is why I think that Owen Jones' advice on how to vote is wrong.

Here's why.

The most important thing - the absolute key thing - is to get the Tories out of Downing Street. We know absolutely what their plans are. To continue to rinse the country, to raid the wealth of the nation, in order to increase the power and riches of their own small set. Everything they do will be directed towards this end and we know it. They'll keep on saying that things are going well, things are getting better, and so they are - for their lot! For the rest of us however things are totally fucked up. The figures released yesterday on the very same day that Sunak was boasting about how well he has done, showed that poverty levels in the UK (and that's absolute poverty, not relative) were higher than they'd been for decades, tells you everything you need to know about where this government is leading us. Einstein said that the definition of madness was to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result, and voting the Tories back into power is no exception.

But Labour? What are they? What will they do?

Stamer is absolutely basing his strategy on winning power, on shadowing the Conservatives. He's adamant in projecting the image that, if you like these guys, you don't need to worry, because we'll be just the same. Even to the point of supporting the possible genocide in Gaza. But you can't believe a word of it. Just as he demonstrated that you couldn't believe a word of what he was saying when he stood in support of Jeremy Corbyn as his deputy. He's a political chameleon, changing colour to meet whatever need arises in order to get that one step closer to Downing Street. Which essentially means you have no idea of what he'll do when he gets there. He could be Atilla the frikkin Hun under all that camouflage and we'd never know it.

But let me give you an analogy.

I'm offering you two lottery tickets. One is last week's ticket that has already shown itself to be no good, and the other is this week's which probably won't be any better than last week's, but just might be. Which are you going to choose? This is essentially your choice with electing in Stamer. He probably won't be any good, but there's no knowing for sure. The tories on the other hand, you know will be shit. And with Stamer, there's always the chance that he did actually agree with something of what Corbyn had to say. He was after all, from a pretty radical background, and journalist Peter Hitchins always maintained that he was a wolf in sheep's clothing, a far more radical man than he ever let on in public. Perhaps it's true.

No, the important thing is to unseat the Tories and get some momentum behind this shift away from the two party system. Voting Stamer in is the first part of that - its unavoidable - and who knows, it may prove to be a different thing than everyone currently expects anyway. I won't hold my breath, because I think it's a dispicable type of politics to be engaged in, but it's the world we live in. And let's face it - it couldn't be much worse than it is now, could it? Could it?

[peter]

I'm sure that despite the obvious signs that something was clearly amiss with the Princess of Wales, last night's heart-rending statement on the Six o'clock News will have come as a shock to most people who saw it.

Princess Kate sat alone, looking vulnerable and tired, to give us the news that the major abdominal surgery she had undergone some weeks ago had revealed that she has cancer, for which she was now embarking upon a course of chemotherapy whilst still recuperating from her operation.

As she gave her statement, only the stoniest of hearts would have failed to have been moved by the eloquence and dignity with which she delivered her news, and we were all reminded, monarchists and republicans alike, that when the chips are down, we are all human beings, sharing the same highs and lows, subject to the same joys and tragedies. The poor woman has been through a meat-grinder in the past few months, with media and online speculation running amok with lurid and intrusive imaginings as to what lay behind her absence. It was a measure of the royal couple's desperation to put an end to this story-mill that the Princess felt forced to sit there at all, and dear God, let us hope that the vampires are satisfied, now that they have driven her to this point.

But in fairness, the royal press office must themselves share some of the responsibility for the rumour explosion that has fountained into life. They have allowed the speculation to grow and grow until it reached uncontainable levels, releasing only fragmentary details of her condition that served only to feed the building inferno, rather than to douse it down. The cropped and tweaked photograph release was deplorably handled, and instead of coming out fighting and saying of course the photograph was edited - it was an amateur picture produced by the Princess herself, hers to present as she chose to do so - Kate was instead required to give a grovelling apology which made it look for all the world like she had something to hide.

The failure of the royal press machine to deliver quality PR for the monarchy is well documented. The way that the old Queen's declining health was kept from the public (she was always "doing very well" until the day she died) makes it almost impossible to believe anything we are told. That it came from Kate herself that she is improving, gaining strength, and that her prognosis is good, is at least some comfort. She seemed to want to be as clear as she could, without going into the personal details of her particular condition, and at this point it would seem to be that her condition is under control. She will be receiving the best of possible medical supervision, with no stone being unturned in order to secure her the best possible outcome. Beyond this we cannot say, and now she must be left alone, granted the privacy that any one of us would deserve, to deal with this in her own way.

No amount of wealth and privilege will shield a person from life's vicissitudes and at the end of the day not one of us is immune to the "thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to". Let's just each of us reflect that 'there but for the grace of God go I', and now wish Kate the strength and fortitude that she will need to face her battles in the coming months. She has the thoughts of the nation with her, and the cumulative will of the people to support her through this fight.

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We are told by Rishi Sunak that we have turned the corner, that this is our year - but the figures don't seem to bear it out. Inflation is coming down and the economy is looking up, tells the Governor of the Bank of England, but tell that to the people struggling to pay their increased mortgage payments following their renegotiated mortgage plans, the renters suffering a nine percent increase in their rental costs.

Poverty levels are at an all time high for the post-war age, but this is down to increased fuel costs (tells the BBC, who in the same sentence, fail to mention Brexit, the pandemic, the money spent on wars in Ukraine). Would that be the same fuel costs whose falling prices are the cause of the fall in inflation, that funnily enough, no-one from my end of the income scale seems to be noticing? Is it then, I wonder, the BBC's job to make the government's excuses for them? To give partial explanations designed to put the best possible spin on the government's performance, or at least to excuse them blame from the places where things are palpably going wrong. Which would be everywhere.

There seems to be a concerted effort from the establishment at the moment, to present things in the best possible light, or where this cannot be done, to provide mitigation for the government role in the problem. Where things are going well, the government has got it right; where not so much it isn't the government's fault. Perhaps the thinking heads in the BBC and Bank of England have suddenly realised that they are actually looking at a likely Labour Party government - and simultaneously realised that they don't know anything about the guy who is going to be running it. Suddenly perhaps they get that the man they assume to be refashioning the Labour Party (back) into something the establishment can live with, has already been all things to all people - that you can't trust a word that comes out of his mouth?

Or perhaps there is another realisation behind it: that the Conservative Party is actually at the risk - probably at more so than at any other point in it's 250 year history - of dying. This party that has served the interests of the monied establishment so well for a quater of a millennia, is actually on the verge of self-immoliation, the party that has served their particular interests so well. Is this what is behind this sudden desire of the institutions of establishment, to find causes for hope in our devastated landscape, or at least find camouflage for the Conservative Party to hide behind where they cannot?

But don't be fooled. This is down to the Conservative Party formed governments of the last decade and a half, and the changes brought about by the Thatcher revolution before that. On the latter, everywhere where the nationalised utilities were sold off we see devastation. Far from being converted into an leaner, more efficiently run asset to the nation we were assured they would be, instead the public owned essential service companies were turned into cash dogs, churning profit into the hands of the wealthy. Simultaneously they were allowed to slip into decline, as monies that should have been going into future needs provision, was instead siphoned off into off-shore accounts in the Cayman Islands. Rail, water, electricity and gas; where they are not profit making they are thrown back onto government support in lieu of being abandoned by their owners altogether (which of course cannot be allowed to happen, and the owners know it). Where there is still a shilling to be made the now foreign owners hang on to all the profits that should be going into our own exchequer - so our industries go towards the support of foreign governments. Good business, eh! And as for trickle down, the only trickle down we have seen has been that which has run through the greedy fingers scooping it upwards as fast as their fat little arms can manage.

Thatcherism has failed us, and now the latter manifestation of the Conservative Party that evolved to replace it (a hug-a-hoodie hot-pot, seasoned with a good splash of othering and a hefty pinch of authoritarianism - what in the frick do you even call that?) has failed too. But perish the thought that you should be told so - because if you were you might start actually thinking that you should change something. And for the top percentile who's bank accounts are overflowing to fullness, for whom the same system that has seen you poor has seen them get rich - rich beyond the dreams of avarice (well, perhaps not that rich....perception of how much money you actually need is pretty elastic - it's always just that bit more than you actually have), well, these guys have no reason for wanting to see anything change. No reason at all.