Gosh, I really don't know where to start today. We've got Vladimir Putin talking about pulling out of the Start Agreement on limiting nuclear weapons holdings/testing. Tony Blair and his counterpart of the day somebody Haigh (I forgot his name and can't be bothered to look it up) telling us that we must all have digital ID's linked to our passports and drivers licences. Aldi and Morrison supermarkets rationing vegetables and reports that this is the beginning of a significant period of limited food availability if not downright shortage... And that's only the start.
Suella Braverman has apparently threatened to resign as Home Secretary if the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill is dropped, the Nurses are suspending their pending strike action as at last the government seem satisfied with the damage it has inflicted on the NHS (for the moment at least) and Jeremy Hunt sticking to his guns that there will be no tax cuts in his forthcoming budget, despite what the Telegraph describes as "a sharp improvement in public finances" (tell that to the businesses going to the wall and the thousands of people having their homes repossessed as we speak).
I mean - some days there is no news to speak of, and others there is simply too much, so where to begin.
The Putin thing was entirely predictable. He and Sleepy Joe gave their respective talks within hours of each other yesterday, and neither had anything to say of note or which came as a suprise. Putin was keen to place the blame on Ukraine on the West and Biden was sticking arm-in-arm with...well, anyone who was agin' Putin. Between the two of them they dance around the floor, displaying a graceful insouciance in respect of the future of the world that their crumbling age raddled bodies do not mirror. Ah well - they've had their bite at the three-score and ten. What worry them that their actions may deny future generations the luxury of existence. These are men forged in the hot fires of the cold war - they know the value of a good (evil) enemy in terms of distraction and popularity building. 1984 was a good teacher on that particular score.
And speaking of 1984, Anthony Blair has always had a penchant for getting people ID'd and catalogued. He was a keen proponent of ID cards back (what?) in the 90's when they were first proposed, deflecting any criticism with the argument that "If you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear."
Bullshit. It's about your right not to have the state poking about in your private life. Your right to walk down the street of your own town and know that it is the duty of the officers of the law, the state, to ensure your safety and freedom to do so without let or hindrance and with no requirement to justify either yourself or your presence. It is the duty of the officer of the state to ensure the safety of your presence, not to question it. It is the duty of the state to provide service to enable your life, not to stack up minutia on the detail of it. Living in a surveillance state is the territory of Soviet Russia, of totalitarian nightmare, and interestingly enough, I heard a guy talking on the issue of 'woke' culture and the fear it introduces, the nervousness of talking about some issues, of expressing some opinions. This, he said, was very much like the way it had been in his experience of living in a Soviet state. The fear that some subjects could simply not be spoken about, how some opinions were beyond the pale of even being discussed, for fear of consequences. It seems that some are entirely comfortable with our straying ever deeper into the areas of Orwellian society, despite the warnings of the author himself. After all, we already live pretty much in the Huxley world, and some have always said that the one would precede the other. Perhaps now we are also entering the era of perpetual warfare with our own Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia as well?
And the food thing. Nothing to do with Brexit of course. No labour to work the fields, no desire for those on the continent to go through the rigmarole of exporting to the UK, no desire on the part of the farmers to produce vegetables that they cannot sell because of the costs of production, or even harvest if they did so - but no mention of Brexit in the media. We mustn't talk about that.
And the small boats crisis. PM Sunak's "most important" issue, right at the top of his agenda! Never mind that it was the very Brexit that he championed that caused it. That there was no 'small boats crisis' before Brexit, because we had a repatriation agreement with the EU called the Dublin agreement, under which any illegal entrant to the UK could be returned to the country within the EU from wence they came, and we tore up that agreement to replace it with..... nothing..... the day we left the EU. But it's Sunak's most pressing issue. The world teeters on the brink of a new cold war (threatening to turn hot), the population faces food shortages if not downright risk of hunger, the economy is a basket case and the country verges upon a national strike - and PM Sunak has the small boats as the top item of his agenda.
Forgive me if I go to a small room somewhere to scream. What fresh lunacy is this? What fresh lunacy is this?
What Do You Think Today?
Moderators: Orlion, balon!, aliantha
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peter
- The Gap Into Spam
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Who'd have thought you'd ever hear anyone use the 'f' word on the BBC news, but hey - there's a first time for everything. No, not actually that f-word; the one I'm referring to is famine, and in the context of food security in the UK.
A guy from the fruit and vegetable growers association was talking on the early evening news and explaining that because of energy costs, UK growers had planted late to avoid the worst of the winter cold (when greenhouses require heating) and consequently would be harvesting later as well. Thus, he said, in the early summer we would probably go from famine to feast in respect of salad produce.
OK, we're not talking biblical stuff here - but it still isn't what we in the UK are used to expecting at this (or any) time of year and we need an explanation for it.
Step forward the BBC. It was, they said, due to bad weather in Spain (from where we'd normally be buying much of our tomato and lettuce supplies) along with some transport issues. Some transport issues. Three words with no explanation or context around them, but which contain a mountain of unspoken detail. Because the transport issues are all to do with Brexit, and the BBC's cowardice in not saying so is all the proof you need to know that our supposedly impartial news service is in fact the government's nodding dog, on any issue that may cast the administration in a bad light.
So let's spell it out. Because we are no longer in the EU, European producers feel no obligation to supply us, especially when other EU countries are in short supply themselves due to energy and weather concerns. Secondly, EU hauliers, if they do make the effort to cross the Chanel, find themselves backed up in a queue to leave the UK (because of post Brexit border controls) when they try to board the ferry to do so. They waste a day at Dover when their vehicle should be earning money, making the whole thing unfeasible. Hence no haulier wants to come here. And this is what those transport issues that are causing our supermarket shelves to empty out actually are. Down to Brexit.
And a bit more evidence of where the BBC sympathies lie was on display on the Laura Kuenssberg show on Sunday. The new SNP leader in Westminster said on the show that "blah, blah, blah, because Boris Johnson is a liar, blah blah blah."
Quick as a flash Kuenssberg was on him; "That's quite a charge," she pipped in.
Quite a charge? Quite a charge? This is Boris Johnson we are talking about! That's like disputing that the pope is a Catholic! Johnson has been recognised as a serial liar since primary school. He's been sacked from two papers for it, sacked twice from ministerial positions for it, he's the undisputed heavyweight champion of liars and even his family members don't deny it!
Come on Laura. Come on BBC. You can do better. You know that this is not what journalism, what public service news reporting is all about. If you won't give at least half impartial coverage to government involved news stories, then people will go elsewhere - most probably to places where the coverage will be equally biased, but in an alternative direction.
By your pusillanimity you damage not only your own reputation, but democracy in the whole of the UK.
A guy from the fruit and vegetable growers association was talking on the early evening news and explaining that because of energy costs, UK growers had planted late to avoid the worst of the winter cold (when greenhouses require heating) and consequently would be harvesting later as well. Thus, he said, in the early summer we would probably go from famine to feast in respect of salad produce.
OK, we're not talking biblical stuff here - but it still isn't what we in the UK are used to expecting at this (or any) time of year and we need an explanation for it.
Step forward the BBC. It was, they said, due to bad weather in Spain (from where we'd normally be buying much of our tomato and lettuce supplies) along with some transport issues. Some transport issues. Three words with no explanation or context around them, but which contain a mountain of unspoken detail. Because the transport issues are all to do with Brexit, and the BBC's cowardice in not saying so is all the proof you need to know that our supposedly impartial news service is in fact the government's nodding dog, on any issue that may cast the administration in a bad light.
So let's spell it out. Because we are no longer in the EU, European producers feel no obligation to supply us, especially when other EU countries are in short supply themselves due to energy and weather concerns. Secondly, EU hauliers, if they do make the effort to cross the Chanel, find themselves backed up in a queue to leave the UK (because of post Brexit border controls) when they try to board the ferry to do so. They waste a day at Dover when their vehicle should be earning money, making the whole thing unfeasible. Hence no haulier wants to come here. And this is what those transport issues that are causing our supermarket shelves to empty out actually are. Down to Brexit.
And a bit more evidence of where the BBC sympathies lie was on display on the Laura Kuenssberg show on Sunday. The new SNP leader in Westminster said on the show that "blah, blah, blah, because Boris Johnson is a liar, blah blah blah."
Quick as a flash Kuenssberg was on him; "That's quite a charge," she pipped in.
Quite a charge? Quite a charge? This is Boris Johnson we are talking about! That's like disputing that the pope is a Catholic! Johnson has been recognised as a serial liar since primary school. He's been sacked from two papers for it, sacked twice from ministerial positions for it, he's the undisputed heavyweight champion of liars and even his family members don't deny it!
Come on Laura. Come on BBC. You can do better. You know that this is not what journalism, what public service news reporting is all about. If you won't give at least half impartial coverage to government involved news stories, then people will go elsewhere - most probably to places where the coverage will be equally biased, but in an alternative direction.
By your pusillanimity you damage not only your own reputation, but democracy in the whole of the UK.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
peter
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 11538
- Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:08 am
- Location: Another time. Another place.
- Been thanked: 6 times
Yesterday, Shamima Begum, the 23 year old woman who left the UK at age 15 to join the Islamic State group in Syria, lost her appeal in the court to overturn the (previously made) decision by a former Home Secretary to remove her British citizenship.
This does not mean that she cannot try to return to the UK, only that the rights of let and passage accorded to a British citizen when entering the UK would not be accorded to her. Coming from Syria, she would have some right to seek asylum status (one of the few countries from whom people may come to the UK and do this - for much of the rest of the world, there are no legal routes into the UK, hence the 'small boats' problems), but given that the security services have deemed her an ongoing risk, she would be unlikely to receive much of a sympathetic hearing at the border and would almost certainly find herself in a detention center awaiting the next flight to Rwanda or some such other ill defined fate.
Oddly, not one of the papers feature this story anywhere on their front pages today, with the minor exception of the Mail, which gives it a postage stamp sized pointer to a (no doubt gloatingly pleased with the result) article inside the paper.
But anyone with a thinking brain can, after a few moments reflection, see that what has been done here is wrong on a number of different levels.
It isn't often that you'll find me in agreement with Jacob Rees-Mogg on anything, but on an earlier episode of the BBC's Question Time some years ago (at the time of the original revoking of her citizenship), the MP for the Victorian era said that in his opinion, Begum should be viewed as a minor who had done what she had at an age before she could be held responsible in the way an adult would, she had been influenced by internet content and had left with an uncertain understanding of what she was doing, and as such should not be treated as an adult would. However, and more to the point, he said, British citizenship was not a thing that could be simply taken away at the whim of a given administration or individual. In fact it was not a thing that should be able to be taken away at all. If there were punishable offences to be laid at Begum's door (and leaving the country is not of itself a punishable act, much as you may deplore the reasoning behind doing so) then she should be returned to the UK to face investigation and trial. Once a citizen, always a citizen was essentially Rees-Mogg's view, and I for one, agreed with him.
I still do. On what grounds was the decision to revoke her citizenship upheld? The security services maintain that Begum remains a significant threat (having presumably been completely radicalised during her time with Isis, in their opinion); it would certainly be a costly business to return her to the UK - she'd need security to prevent vengeance attacks on her, surveillance in case she was planning a future attack, or assisting in a radical insurgency program of some kind within the UK, and then there's the cost of an investigation into her activities while abroad, and subsequent hearings in the courts.
Yes, bringing her back opens up all kinds of problems and expense. Better perhaps, to leave her where she is, in a kind of stateless limbo in a refugee camp in Syria?
Well we do know at least one activity that this young woman has been up to. Married to a man, an Isis fighter who she claimed in an earlier interview to love, she has produced three children, all of whom have died, the last in the Syrian refugee camp where she is currently held, and who's life might well have been saved had Begum been back in the UK.
And to look at Begum now, you would not believe that she was anything other than another young Western woman, of a type you'd meet in any UK city. Gone is the burka, the black nun like robes of the devout Islamicist bride, to be replaced by a baseball cap, Western clothing and a face complete with makeup and long hair as would be seen on any British woman of a similar age. But of course it might all be a front. Inside she might still be a boiling cauldron of hatred for all things Western. She might be playing the long game simply to get back to the UK in order to bring the fight back to these shores. Or she might be putting on a good Western show, playing on her obvious feminine charms, to simply get back to the home country that she now regrets having ever left. Perhaps the reality of life for a woman under the strict Islamic code of an Isis run state has begun to bite? The glamour that overtook a childish mind of 'running away to join the fight' (replace that with the circus in my day - but I never had the courage or indeed the opportunity) is suddenly replaced by the reality of a grungy life of subservience in a succession of brutally run camps and dirty backwater towns in the Middle East. Maybe this explains her change of appearance, what she would have us believe is her change of mind.
And in my case, I have to say I think she should be given the benefit of the doubt. She was, in my opinion, a child when she left this country. The law would certainly agree with me on that. But the learned judge of yesterday's announcement did not believe that as a child she should not be held culpable for her actions. In his opinion, she knew well what she was doing, and this removes her protection from the use of her legal status as a child as an influencing factor in the decision pertaining to her citizenship. But even if you accept this - and I don't - what exactly is it that she is supposed to have done? Did she wield a blade to sever the heads of British infidels? There is no suggestion of this as far as I'm aware. In fact she seems to have done little or nothing other than to identify with a religious extremism that was causing revulsion all around the world at the time because of its barbarous acts. And in this sense, the judgement of the time, and indeed the judgement of yesterday, seem little more than acts of petty vengeance by the state against someone who, in different circumstances, would have been considered a vulnerable child.
And this leads me to a broader point.
It is unquestionably the case that our view on the treatment that should be meted out to young offenders is in many respects less sympathetic than would have been the case in former times. Take the terrible case of the murder of the toddler Jamie Bulger as a case in point.
In 1993 the UK public read aghast, of the torture and murder of a two year old boy at the hands of two ten year old boys. The perpetrators took the young child to a secluded spot where they carried out their iniquitous deed, after which they were soon apprehended and arraigned in front of the courts. The public hysteria was deafening, led by a media screaming for vengeance, with little or no consideration being given to the age of the perpetrators.
Now it is a sad fact that such killings are not a new phenomenon, not exclusively the property of our age, but have a recorded history down through the ages. I recently read A N Wilson's superlative book The Victorians in which he compared the treatment of the Bulger murderers to that of another equally famous case back in the day, that made famous by the book, The Suspicions of Mr Witcher, the murder of the three year old Francis Saville Kent by his half sister Constance. In the latter case, as was the order of the day, the child murderer was considered too young to be held fully responsible for her actions. Constance Kent did serve an appreciable time in custody, but when the time came for her release, there was none of the media hysteria, no calls for her to be remanded back into custody, that we saw in the case of the Bulger murderers. For some reason now, we have become less considering of the age of a perpetrator, less sympathetic to the innocence conferred by not having attained the judgemental capacity of an adult, in terms of assessment of right and wrong. Less sympathetic than even the Victorians, who are not noted for being big in the sympathy department. Where a child who committed a serious crime would in years gone by have been released with a good chance of their felony being forgiven them, to stand a reasonable hope of living a good and proper life out, not continuously under the cloud of their offence, today things are different. We do not forgive and we do not forget. The offender must labour for ever and a day against the crime they have committed, forever under the shadow cast by their former transgression.
And what, I wonder, does this tell us about our society? Our society where so much effort is spent insuring that no-one is offended by the most trivial of insensitive remarks, where on the one hand people are encouraged to have tissue thin skins and to take offense at the slightest of rough talk or treatment (often not even perceived at the time of offence by the offender) and yet we are unable to give the same sympathetic consideration to the age of a child when they commit an offence (or in Begum's case, an insult) against the society they live in.
This does not mean that she cannot try to return to the UK, only that the rights of let and passage accorded to a British citizen when entering the UK would not be accorded to her. Coming from Syria, she would have some right to seek asylum status (one of the few countries from whom people may come to the UK and do this - for much of the rest of the world, there are no legal routes into the UK, hence the 'small boats' problems), but given that the security services have deemed her an ongoing risk, she would be unlikely to receive much of a sympathetic hearing at the border and would almost certainly find herself in a detention center awaiting the next flight to Rwanda or some such other ill defined fate.
Oddly, not one of the papers feature this story anywhere on their front pages today, with the minor exception of the Mail, which gives it a postage stamp sized pointer to a (no doubt gloatingly pleased with the result) article inside the paper.
But anyone with a thinking brain can, after a few moments reflection, see that what has been done here is wrong on a number of different levels.
It isn't often that you'll find me in agreement with Jacob Rees-Mogg on anything, but on an earlier episode of the BBC's Question Time some years ago (at the time of the original revoking of her citizenship), the MP for the Victorian era said that in his opinion, Begum should be viewed as a minor who had done what she had at an age before she could be held responsible in the way an adult would, she had been influenced by internet content and had left with an uncertain understanding of what she was doing, and as such should not be treated as an adult would. However, and more to the point, he said, British citizenship was not a thing that could be simply taken away at the whim of a given administration or individual. In fact it was not a thing that should be able to be taken away at all. If there were punishable offences to be laid at Begum's door (and leaving the country is not of itself a punishable act, much as you may deplore the reasoning behind doing so) then she should be returned to the UK to face investigation and trial. Once a citizen, always a citizen was essentially Rees-Mogg's view, and I for one, agreed with him.
I still do. On what grounds was the decision to revoke her citizenship upheld? The security services maintain that Begum remains a significant threat (having presumably been completely radicalised during her time with Isis, in their opinion); it would certainly be a costly business to return her to the UK - she'd need security to prevent vengeance attacks on her, surveillance in case she was planning a future attack, or assisting in a radical insurgency program of some kind within the UK, and then there's the cost of an investigation into her activities while abroad, and subsequent hearings in the courts.
Yes, bringing her back opens up all kinds of problems and expense. Better perhaps, to leave her where she is, in a kind of stateless limbo in a refugee camp in Syria?
Well we do know at least one activity that this young woman has been up to. Married to a man, an Isis fighter who she claimed in an earlier interview to love, she has produced three children, all of whom have died, the last in the Syrian refugee camp where she is currently held, and who's life might well have been saved had Begum been back in the UK.
And to look at Begum now, you would not believe that she was anything other than another young Western woman, of a type you'd meet in any UK city. Gone is the burka, the black nun like robes of the devout Islamicist bride, to be replaced by a baseball cap, Western clothing and a face complete with makeup and long hair as would be seen on any British woman of a similar age. But of course it might all be a front. Inside she might still be a boiling cauldron of hatred for all things Western. She might be playing the long game simply to get back to the UK in order to bring the fight back to these shores. Or she might be putting on a good Western show, playing on her obvious feminine charms, to simply get back to the home country that she now regrets having ever left. Perhaps the reality of life for a woman under the strict Islamic code of an Isis run state has begun to bite? The glamour that overtook a childish mind of 'running away to join the fight' (replace that with the circus in my day - but I never had the courage or indeed the opportunity) is suddenly replaced by the reality of a grungy life of subservience in a succession of brutally run camps and dirty backwater towns in the Middle East. Maybe this explains her change of appearance, what she would have us believe is her change of mind.
And in my case, I have to say I think she should be given the benefit of the doubt. She was, in my opinion, a child when she left this country. The law would certainly agree with me on that. But the learned judge of yesterday's announcement did not believe that as a child she should not be held culpable for her actions. In his opinion, she knew well what she was doing, and this removes her protection from the use of her legal status as a child as an influencing factor in the decision pertaining to her citizenship. But even if you accept this - and I don't - what exactly is it that she is supposed to have done? Did she wield a blade to sever the heads of British infidels? There is no suggestion of this as far as I'm aware. In fact she seems to have done little or nothing other than to identify with a religious extremism that was causing revulsion all around the world at the time because of its barbarous acts. And in this sense, the judgement of the time, and indeed the judgement of yesterday, seem little more than acts of petty vengeance by the state against someone who, in different circumstances, would have been considered a vulnerable child.
And this leads me to a broader point.
It is unquestionably the case that our view on the treatment that should be meted out to young offenders is in many respects less sympathetic than would have been the case in former times. Take the terrible case of the murder of the toddler Jamie Bulger as a case in point.
In 1993 the UK public read aghast, of the torture and murder of a two year old boy at the hands of two ten year old boys. The perpetrators took the young child to a secluded spot where they carried out their iniquitous deed, after which they were soon apprehended and arraigned in front of the courts. The public hysteria was deafening, led by a media screaming for vengeance, with little or no consideration being given to the age of the perpetrators.
Now it is a sad fact that such killings are not a new phenomenon, not exclusively the property of our age, but have a recorded history down through the ages. I recently read A N Wilson's superlative book The Victorians in which he compared the treatment of the Bulger murderers to that of another equally famous case back in the day, that made famous by the book, The Suspicions of Mr Witcher, the murder of the three year old Francis Saville Kent by his half sister Constance. In the latter case, as was the order of the day, the child murderer was considered too young to be held fully responsible for her actions. Constance Kent did serve an appreciable time in custody, but when the time came for her release, there was none of the media hysteria, no calls for her to be remanded back into custody, that we saw in the case of the Bulger murderers. For some reason now, we have become less considering of the age of a perpetrator, less sympathetic to the innocence conferred by not having attained the judgemental capacity of an adult, in terms of assessment of right and wrong. Less sympathetic than even the Victorians, who are not noted for being big in the sympathy department. Where a child who committed a serious crime would in years gone by have been released with a good chance of their felony being forgiven them, to stand a reasonable hope of living a good and proper life out, not continuously under the cloud of their offence, today things are different. We do not forgive and we do not forget. The offender must labour for ever and a day against the crime they have committed, forever under the shadow cast by their former transgression.
And what, I wonder, does this tell us about our society? Our society where so much effort is spent insuring that no-one is offended by the most trivial of insensitive remarks, where on the one hand people are encouraged to have tissue thin skins and to take offense at the slightest of rough talk or treatment (often not even perceived at the time of offence by the offender) and yet we are unable to give the same sympathetic consideration to the age of a child when they commit an offence (or in Begum's case, an insult) against the society they live in.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
peter
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 11538
- Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:08 am
- Location: Another time. Another place.
- Been thanked: 6 times
Today the archbishop of Canterbury is in the paper saying that Russia must not be left ruined by the war in Ukraine, as was Germany after the first world war. PM Sunak, for his part was saying that Ukraine must be given strategic advantage with the necessary armaments to achieve victory this year - sentiments echoed by former PM Boris Johnson in his contributions.
Everywhere it is assumed that 'the West' (whatever that is) will win this thing, with very little thought given to any other outcome.
Only Ben Wallace, UK defence secretary seemed to put forward a note of caution. The conflict, he said, was likely to still be going in another years time.
Does it not occur to anyone that there might actually not be any winners from this thing? Or that any so-called victory may be so pyrrhic as to be meaningless? Already the world economy is shaken to its foundations, energy costs and availability causing havoc right down to the level of individual households. And all the while, while our various administrations commit more and more money and resources that they can ill afford to this conflict, domestic needs go unmet, and bigger issues like dealing with the impending climate crisis are all but forgotten.
Surely we are sleepwalking into disaster on multiple fronts here.
And while Sunak and Johnson, Bush and Zelensky, call for a swift push to get this thing wrapped up, again it seems not to cross theirs or anyone's mind that perhaps the other players in this game might have different ideas. That, in their arrogant assumption of inevitable victory, they seem to forget that Putin has a nuclear arsenal (he's reminding us of the fact as we speak), that China might be somewhat less than happy to see the West sweep away a significant partner in agreement with itself, that it's time the Western (read American) hegemony of world power and influence came to an end. Because while we might like the status quo, thank you very much, there are other forces in the world that think it's time for a change. That maybe it's time for a shift in power in respect of the way things are organised. And that these reorganisers might not be happy to see their ambitions pushed back by decades, might not be happy to see the American hegemony step in and crush Russia with what it might view, not as the purpose of liberating a country following an illegal invasion, but more of an attempt to re-establish itself as the dominant power on a world stage that it sees slipping away from itself.
And all the while, while the big Western players make their displays of unity and commitment, shout their ongoing support for freedom and democracy from the rafters, below the parapet other smaller players are less jingoistic, more pragmatic about the affair. Some have more to loose by seeing Putin crushed (think the Hungarian leader), some are simply more careful with their rhetoric (Macron of France for example), and some are plain worried about the domestic implications of what they are involved in. So all in all the much vaunted unity of the Western coalition is much more fragile than is being let on. And none of the figures being put out, none of the reportage that is being broadcast, can be trusted. We are subject to propaganda and bias in reportage, to nudge units and behavioural science policy just as much as 'the other side' (there it is again - don't we just love, and our governments need for us to have 'an other').
And what happens if this coalition begins to crumble? It never seems to occur to our media, our pundits to ask, "Is it so sure, such a given, that we are going to emerge from all of this undamaged in respect of world influence?" Might it not be that, if our alliance crumbles - and it could - if our domestic conditions and public supports demand a climb down - and they could - that we emerge in a weaker and damaged situation from which to pick up the pieces?
So we could fry the world, economically, or literally; we could end up with a pyrrhic victory, on top but fatally wounded; we could end up damaged to the point of having lost ground as influencers of world policy. These are real possibilities. But one year into a campaign that was supposed to be over in days, even someone as misguided as Putin must be questioning where all this could end, wishing perhaps that he could turn back the clock.
Boris Johnson said that if we are going to have to give Ukraine the tools to finish the job sooner or later, then it might as well be sooner. I'd go one further. If we are going to have to negotiate a settlement sooner or later (as opposed to taking this to its extreme end that likely, none of us will emerge victorious from), then sooner would be better. And now, one year in while minds are focused, might be the very time to broach it.
Time for the UN (and a UN unshackled from American dominance) to call all of the respective heads of state together to negotiate a settlement. If it cannot do this, exercise the function for which it was originally put together, then it is a worthless entity and we might as well not have it. If we are going to keep going backwards as we seem as a world, determined to do, then let us do away with the sham of unity, of preparedness to bow to a universal order in the pursuit of benefit to all human kind, and return to the savagery of the early twentieth century. At least there would be an honesty to that which seems absent in the course we are currently following.
For god's sake all of you, you supposed leaders of the world, in the name of simple humanity, come together in some appropriate place and in the wise words of Lennon, give peace a chance! This is the least you can do. Do we have to rip our world apart before sanity can once again rule the day? I say once again. Give Peace a Chance!
Everywhere it is assumed that 'the West' (whatever that is) will win this thing, with very little thought given to any other outcome.
Only Ben Wallace, UK defence secretary seemed to put forward a note of caution. The conflict, he said, was likely to still be going in another years time.
Does it not occur to anyone that there might actually not be any winners from this thing? Or that any so-called victory may be so pyrrhic as to be meaningless? Already the world economy is shaken to its foundations, energy costs and availability causing havoc right down to the level of individual households. And all the while, while our various administrations commit more and more money and resources that they can ill afford to this conflict, domestic needs go unmet, and bigger issues like dealing with the impending climate crisis are all but forgotten.
Surely we are sleepwalking into disaster on multiple fronts here.
And while Sunak and Johnson, Bush and Zelensky, call for a swift push to get this thing wrapped up, again it seems not to cross theirs or anyone's mind that perhaps the other players in this game might have different ideas. That, in their arrogant assumption of inevitable victory, they seem to forget that Putin has a nuclear arsenal (he's reminding us of the fact as we speak), that China might be somewhat less than happy to see the West sweep away a significant partner in agreement with itself, that it's time the Western (read American) hegemony of world power and influence came to an end. Because while we might like the status quo, thank you very much, there are other forces in the world that think it's time for a change. That maybe it's time for a shift in power in respect of the way things are organised. And that these reorganisers might not be happy to see their ambitions pushed back by decades, might not be happy to see the American hegemony step in and crush Russia with what it might view, not as the purpose of liberating a country following an illegal invasion, but more of an attempt to re-establish itself as the dominant power on a world stage that it sees slipping away from itself.
And all the while, while the big Western players make their displays of unity and commitment, shout their ongoing support for freedom and democracy from the rafters, below the parapet other smaller players are less jingoistic, more pragmatic about the affair. Some have more to loose by seeing Putin crushed (think the Hungarian leader), some are simply more careful with their rhetoric (Macron of France for example), and some are plain worried about the domestic implications of what they are involved in. So all in all the much vaunted unity of the Western coalition is much more fragile than is being let on. And none of the figures being put out, none of the reportage that is being broadcast, can be trusted. We are subject to propaganda and bias in reportage, to nudge units and behavioural science policy just as much as 'the other side' (there it is again - don't we just love, and our governments need for us to have 'an other').
And what happens if this coalition begins to crumble? It never seems to occur to our media, our pundits to ask, "Is it so sure, such a given, that we are going to emerge from all of this undamaged in respect of world influence?" Might it not be that, if our alliance crumbles - and it could - if our domestic conditions and public supports demand a climb down - and they could - that we emerge in a weaker and damaged situation from which to pick up the pieces?
So we could fry the world, economically, or literally; we could end up with a pyrrhic victory, on top but fatally wounded; we could end up damaged to the point of having lost ground as influencers of world policy. These are real possibilities. But one year into a campaign that was supposed to be over in days, even someone as misguided as Putin must be questioning where all this could end, wishing perhaps that he could turn back the clock.
Boris Johnson said that if we are going to have to give Ukraine the tools to finish the job sooner or later, then it might as well be sooner. I'd go one further. If we are going to have to negotiate a settlement sooner or later (as opposed to taking this to its extreme end that likely, none of us will emerge victorious from), then sooner would be better. And now, one year in while minds are focused, might be the very time to broach it.
Time for the UN (and a UN unshackled from American dominance) to call all of the respective heads of state together to negotiate a settlement. If it cannot do this, exercise the function for which it was originally put together, then it is a worthless entity and we might as well not have it. If we are going to keep going backwards as we seem as a world, determined to do, then let us do away with the sham of unity, of preparedness to bow to a universal order in the pursuit of benefit to all human kind, and return to the savagery of the early twentieth century. At least there would be an honesty to that which seems absent in the course we are currently following.
For god's sake all of you, you supposed leaders of the world, in the name of simple humanity, come together in some appropriate place and in the wise words of Lennon, give peace a chance! This is the least you can do. Do we have to rip our world apart before sanity can once again rule the day? I say once again. Give Peace a Chance!
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
peter
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 11538
- Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:08 am
- Location: Another time. Another place.
- Been thanked: 6 times
Well. Either PM Sunak has worked the impossible and gotten the EU to accept his two lane approach to the flow of goods into Northern Ireland without any jurisdiction to the ECJ being conceded, or he is preparing to pull off the head in the lions mouth trick of the century, by trying to get a deal past both the ERG and the DUP in which the European Court is still given a role.
Today's papers are telling us that the Conservative backbenchers have been given a three line whip for Monday (ie they have to attend the chamber of the House of Commons and are obliged to vote with the government) and that ministers in the government itself have been told to be available for a remote video conference over the weekend in preparation for a big announcement on the day (that'll please them!).
It is even said that President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen will be invited to London (at some point) for a signing off ceremony, such would be the momentous achievement of pulling off such a deal.
But fair play to Sunak, this would be a terrific achievement if he could do it, and given the recent shooting of a police officer in the province by the New IRA, one that could not come too soon in terms of re-establishing the power sharing assembly at Stormont.
But if he fails........
Well, if he fails then all hell is about to be unleashed. It would be exactly the chance that the Tory backbenchers who want Boris Johnson back in the saddle have been waiting for and they would not miss their opportunity. They know that time is running out if they are to get their man back into Number 10 in time to fight the next election, and this would be their chance. There might not be a huge number of them, but there is a sizable number and such is the fractured state of the parliamentary Conservative Party that they could probably pull enough MPs together to achieve their goal if Sunak blows it.
Needless to say that it is Johnson himself who is spearheading the campaign against any changes to the existing Northern Ireland Withdrawal Agreement (which he of course negotiated) and is also championing the continuation of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, passage of which through the Commons Sunak has suspended, which would legitimise our ability to make unilateral changes to the specific area of the Protocol where we considered necessary. Johnson considers this a key bargaining chip in putting pressure on the EU to winkle out concessions from them. So, it seems that British politics might be about to go up in the air again.
Watch this space.
----------0--------
I may be wrong, but I think that there are definite signs of people beginning to tire with the idea that everything must be neutered, watered down in order to spare the sensibilities of anyone who might be offended by the slightest of (in this day and age) improper commentary or language.
The decision of Puffin Books to backtrack on their intention to make hundreds of changes removing reference to weight, skin colour, attractiveness etc, from the works of Roald Dhal, is but a sign, I believe, of a deeper change.
The decision was made following interventions by both Sunak and the Queen (Camilla, that is) suggesting that the changes were a step too far - the Queen Consort seemed to go even further telling authors to write, "Unimpeded by those who may wish to curb your freedom of expression."
The gender business is another area in which people seem to be loosing patience as well. Speaking to people, you rarely seem to come across anyone who doesn't think that it is all going a bit too far - people identifying as whatever they choose from a panoply of hundreds of different flavours - and everyone else being obligated to humour them not just by accepting their free choice (which is absolutely proper), but also by acceptance of their presence in places where they should not, by any stretch, rightly be (men in women's prisons, toilets and changing rooms etc).
And the God business. We're not a highly religious country, but again, few people seem to be able to be found who in any way support the idea of rewriting the Lord's Prayer in gender neutral language, an idea that even some insiders in the Church of England seemed to be considering. Okay, if they want to stress that the God of the Bible was not in most cases presented in terms of gender, so be it - most people can swallow that - but they draw the line at being told how they themselves must think of that dubiously (to them) existent entity, in terms of male or female.
I'm not sure how we have got to this point, but I'm thinking that there is now a trend to actually move beyond it. That people are becoming a little tired of everything having to be framed in terms of identity and social grouping. It will probably be for the better when we move into a less contentious style of expression, less coercive and thicker skinned version of where we are now. The experiment has been good and I for one would not go back to the place where I came from in my youth, of unfeeling societal acceptance of prejudice and insensitivity. We have all learned a lot - of this there can be no doubt.
But a line must sooner or later be drawn under it. We must move forward with our lessons keenly learned, but also cognisant that the wheat of our freedom of thought, of expression, must not be discarded with the chaff of our previous inattention to the feelings of others.
--------0------
Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Therese Coffey thinks that, in the situation of the shortage of salad products in our supermarkets, we should all be eating turnips. I'm from Cornwall Therese. I already do.
And finally, I'm glad to see that at least the Chinese seem to want to talk peace in relation to Ukraine, and that President Zelensky has said that he'd like to meet Xi to discuss the 12 point peace plan they are suggesting. This at least is a positive step.
Today's papers are telling us that the Conservative backbenchers have been given a three line whip for Monday (ie they have to attend the chamber of the House of Commons and are obliged to vote with the government) and that ministers in the government itself have been told to be available for a remote video conference over the weekend in preparation for a big announcement on the day (that'll please them!).
It is even said that President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen will be invited to London (at some point) for a signing off ceremony, such would be the momentous achievement of pulling off such a deal.
But fair play to Sunak, this would be a terrific achievement if he could do it, and given the recent shooting of a police officer in the province by the New IRA, one that could not come too soon in terms of re-establishing the power sharing assembly at Stormont.
But if he fails........
Well, if he fails then all hell is about to be unleashed. It would be exactly the chance that the Tory backbenchers who want Boris Johnson back in the saddle have been waiting for and they would not miss their opportunity. They know that time is running out if they are to get their man back into Number 10 in time to fight the next election, and this would be their chance. There might not be a huge number of them, but there is a sizable number and such is the fractured state of the parliamentary Conservative Party that they could probably pull enough MPs together to achieve their goal if Sunak blows it.
Needless to say that it is Johnson himself who is spearheading the campaign against any changes to the existing Northern Ireland Withdrawal Agreement (which he of course negotiated) and is also championing the continuation of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, passage of which through the Commons Sunak has suspended, which would legitimise our ability to make unilateral changes to the specific area of the Protocol where we considered necessary. Johnson considers this a key bargaining chip in putting pressure on the EU to winkle out concessions from them. So, it seems that British politics might be about to go up in the air again.
Watch this space.
----------0--------
I may be wrong, but I think that there are definite signs of people beginning to tire with the idea that everything must be neutered, watered down in order to spare the sensibilities of anyone who might be offended by the slightest of (in this day and age) improper commentary or language.
The decision of Puffin Books to backtrack on their intention to make hundreds of changes removing reference to weight, skin colour, attractiveness etc, from the works of Roald Dhal, is but a sign, I believe, of a deeper change.
The decision was made following interventions by both Sunak and the Queen (Camilla, that is) suggesting that the changes were a step too far - the Queen Consort seemed to go even further telling authors to write, "Unimpeded by those who may wish to curb your freedom of expression."
The gender business is another area in which people seem to be loosing patience as well. Speaking to people, you rarely seem to come across anyone who doesn't think that it is all going a bit too far - people identifying as whatever they choose from a panoply of hundreds of different flavours - and everyone else being obligated to humour them not just by accepting their free choice (which is absolutely proper), but also by acceptance of their presence in places where they should not, by any stretch, rightly be (men in women's prisons, toilets and changing rooms etc).
And the God business. We're not a highly religious country, but again, few people seem to be able to be found who in any way support the idea of rewriting the Lord's Prayer in gender neutral language, an idea that even some insiders in the Church of England seemed to be considering. Okay, if they want to stress that the God of the Bible was not in most cases presented in terms of gender, so be it - most people can swallow that - but they draw the line at being told how they themselves must think of that dubiously (to them) existent entity, in terms of male or female.
I'm not sure how we have got to this point, but I'm thinking that there is now a trend to actually move beyond it. That people are becoming a little tired of everything having to be framed in terms of identity and social grouping. It will probably be for the better when we move into a less contentious style of expression, less coercive and thicker skinned version of where we are now. The experiment has been good and I for one would not go back to the place where I came from in my youth, of unfeeling societal acceptance of prejudice and insensitivity. We have all learned a lot - of this there can be no doubt.
But a line must sooner or later be drawn under it. We must move forward with our lessons keenly learned, but also cognisant that the wheat of our freedom of thought, of expression, must not be discarded with the chaff of our previous inattention to the feelings of others.
--------0------
Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Therese Coffey thinks that, in the situation of the shortage of salad products in our supermarkets, we should all be eating turnips. I'm from Cornwall Therese. I already do.
And finally, I'm glad to see that at least the Chinese seem to want to talk peace in relation to Ukraine, and that President Zelensky has said that he'd like to meet Xi to discuss the 12 point peace plan they are suggesting. This at least is a positive step.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
peter
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 11538
- Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:08 am
- Location: Another time. Another place.
- Been thanked: 6 times
Grumbling opposition to the Sunak Northern Ireland proposal from the Tory ranks as prominent backbencher Steve Baker is put onto 'resignation watch' and vocal complaints from the ERG about the "oddness" of one of the main protagonists in the situation not being consulted in the development of the proposals, let alone being shown them right up to the wire. It speaks, they say, of lack of confidence in the government ranks about their own deal's acceptability.
Meanwhile Sunak is accused of trying to 'bounce' the agreement past the Commons, by calling in the Conservative Members on Monday for what looks increasingly likely to be a vote on really short notice with minimal time to scrutinize what they are voting for.
In a similar vein, the DUP were incandescent about Sunak's clumsy attempt to use King Charles to pull the people of Northern Ireland in behind the agreement, by having Ursula von der Leyen over to Windsor Castle at the time of the announcement, and even going so far as to call it the Windsor Agreement - a suggestion now dropped. The Northern Ireland protestants are fiercely loyal to the crown and the use of the King to draw them to an agreement that their main representative party, the DUP, felt to be a betrayal, was, in their opinion, a cheap trick. Jacob Rees-Mogg of the ERG has said it borders on being constitutionally illegal.
Meanwhile, I, for my part, am pissed at the government for a different reason. Namely, their dishonesty over the food shortages.
They are adamant that these are nothing to do with brexit when they palpably and clearly are. We are producing less food domestically through shortage of labour, we have gone to the back of the queue in respect of securing European food deliveries because of the increased paperwork and border/cabotage issues of European suppliers, and European drivers simply do not want to spend up to a week making deliveries to the UK that they could equal in in other EU member states with half the trouble in a day or two.
We are being told that this is down to the weather, that it is a Europe wide problem. It isn't. This is a lie, plain and simple, and one that is being propagated by our own version of Pravda, the BBC in the government interest. The shortage of salad produce and vegetables is in this country alone. The shelves of European supermarkets are brimming with produce at the same levels as normal. Their ability to quickly shift supply chains and delivery routes makes it easy for them to deal with any minimal shortfall in supply from one given area - and there is undoubtedly a weather issue in Spain - such that it is not even noticeable. We are being lied to by our own government and I don't like it. It presages bad things to come.
On the issue of the Ukrainian situation, the palpable duplicity of the government in the brexit area makes me doubt their honesty in other areas as well. When lying to the people becomes the norm for a government, nothing they say - nothing - can be trusted. We are told that there is nothing of note in the Chinese peace proposals for the Ukraine. How then, do we know that this is true? How do we know that so great is our government's desire that nothing that the Chinese do can ever be presented in a good light, that they would not say that something be bad, that in fact could actually be good? Nothing they say can be trusted: if they can be palpably seen to be lying in one area, then they cannot be known to be trustworthy in any area.
For my part, I'm happy to admit that I've wanted to see a peace initiative being started since day one of this affair. I don't like seeing people distressed, people being killed and chaos reigning. I've not been happy that Western foreign policy has not played its role in all of this, while simultaneously absolutely condemning Putin for what he is doing. But that is neither here nor there. I'm just happy that a peace proposal should be drawn up, and care nothing about from where it comes. The Chinese we are told, are playing a double game. Of course they are. Are not we? But the fact remains that it is the Chinese to whom the Russians are most likely to listen, not the West whose rhetoric has been nothing but hawkish since day one. Why should China not be the ones to bring about a settlement to this affair. What matter who does this as long as it is done. And in respect of the damage to the American hegemony, the dominance a single state of world policy in all areas - pfufft to that! I'm all for equity when it comes to the value of people and I apply no different reasoning when it comes to nation states. I have no truck with this "It's my way or the highway" stuff when it comes to world politics. It completely undermines the value of bodies like the United Nations, renders them unfit for the hugely important purpose they were created to perform.
No. I don't believe it when my government says that no-one can make the running in any kind of peace process except the Western powers, and I hope Zelensky does not buy it either. Will our 'help' to the Ukrainian people dry up overnight if their leader decided that a sit down negotiated settlement with the Russians as mediated by a Chinese intermediary might be a good way out of this impasse? I suspect it would. And what light would this shed on our much vaunted stance of "shoulder to shoulder against the forces of tyranny".
I repeat, a government that lies to its people is no good to its people and can be trusted in nothing it says.
Meanwhile Sunak is accused of trying to 'bounce' the agreement past the Commons, by calling in the Conservative Members on Monday for what looks increasingly likely to be a vote on really short notice with minimal time to scrutinize what they are voting for.
In a similar vein, the DUP were incandescent about Sunak's clumsy attempt to use King Charles to pull the people of Northern Ireland in behind the agreement, by having Ursula von der Leyen over to Windsor Castle at the time of the announcement, and even going so far as to call it the Windsor Agreement - a suggestion now dropped. The Northern Ireland protestants are fiercely loyal to the crown and the use of the King to draw them to an agreement that their main representative party, the DUP, felt to be a betrayal, was, in their opinion, a cheap trick. Jacob Rees-Mogg of the ERG has said it borders on being constitutionally illegal.
Meanwhile, I, for my part, am pissed at the government for a different reason. Namely, their dishonesty over the food shortages.
They are adamant that these are nothing to do with brexit when they palpably and clearly are. We are producing less food domestically through shortage of labour, we have gone to the back of the queue in respect of securing European food deliveries because of the increased paperwork and border/cabotage issues of European suppliers, and European drivers simply do not want to spend up to a week making deliveries to the UK that they could equal in in other EU member states with half the trouble in a day or two.
We are being told that this is down to the weather, that it is a Europe wide problem. It isn't. This is a lie, plain and simple, and one that is being propagated by our own version of Pravda, the BBC in the government interest. The shortage of salad produce and vegetables is in this country alone. The shelves of European supermarkets are brimming with produce at the same levels as normal. Their ability to quickly shift supply chains and delivery routes makes it easy for them to deal with any minimal shortfall in supply from one given area - and there is undoubtedly a weather issue in Spain - such that it is not even noticeable. We are being lied to by our own government and I don't like it. It presages bad things to come.
On the issue of the Ukrainian situation, the palpable duplicity of the government in the brexit area makes me doubt their honesty in other areas as well. When lying to the people becomes the norm for a government, nothing they say - nothing - can be trusted. We are told that there is nothing of note in the Chinese peace proposals for the Ukraine. How then, do we know that this is true? How do we know that so great is our government's desire that nothing that the Chinese do can ever be presented in a good light, that they would not say that something be bad, that in fact could actually be good? Nothing they say can be trusted: if they can be palpably seen to be lying in one area, then they cannot be known to be trustworthy in any area.
For my part, I'm happy to admit that I've wanted to see a peace initiative being started since day one of this affair. I don't like seeing people distressed, people being killed and chaos reigning. I've not been happy that Western foreign policy has not played its role in all of this, while simultaneously absolutely condemning Putin for what he is doing. But that is neither here nor there. I'm just happy that a peace proposal should be drawn up, and care nothing about from where it comes. The Chinese we are told, are playing a double game. Of course they are. Are not we? But the fact remains that it is the Chinese to whom the Russians are most likely to listen, not the West whose rhetoric has been nothing but hawkish since day one. Why should China not be the ones to bring about a settlement to this affair. What matter who does this as long as it is done. And in respect of the damage to the American hegemony, the dominance a single state of world policy in all areas - pfufft to that! I'm all for equity when it comes to the value of people and I apply no different reasoning when it comes to nation states. I have no truck with this "It's my way or the highway" stuff when it comes to world politics. It completely undermines the value of bodies like the United Nations, renders them unfit for the hugely important purpose they were created to perform.
No. I don't believe it when my government says that no-one can make the running in any kind of peace process except the Western powers, and I hope Zelensky does not buy it either. Will our 'help' to the Ukrainian people dry up overnight if their leader decided that a sit down negotiated settlement with the Russians as mediated by a Chinese intermediary might be a good way out of this impasse? I suspect it would. And what light would this shed on our much vaunted stance of "shoulder to shoulder against the forces of tyranny".
I repeat, a government that lies to its people is no good to its people and can be trusted in nothing it says.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
peter
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 11538
- Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:08 am
- Location: Another time. Another place.
- Been thanked: 6 times
How great to see ex Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in the UK last week doing a series of promotional interviews prior to the release of his book It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism.
Sanders did some really high profile media programs, Good Morning Britain, and Sophie Ridge on Sunday, Andrew Marr on LBC, in which he absolutely nailed it down in terms of spelling out his multi-pronged attack on the values of our political administrations.
Chief among his arguments was the now huge disparities in wealth distribution in our societies, and the causes behind this. When our very systems become geared toward generating wealth for only a tiny elite, when the absence of progressive taxation systems allows for the accrual of staggering wealth in a few individuals (eg in the USA one percent of the population holding over ninety percent of the country's wealth) then it is people's right to question what is going wrong.
He also, when questioned on his views about health care - and the interviewers were all keen to ask about his views on the declared policies of both leading parties in the UK to increase the use of private outsourcing in the NHS - was absolutely unequivocal in his stating that health care free at the point of service was a fundamental human right. He was almost desperate in his pleading that we in the UK did not move toward the American system which was, he said, by its very nature geared only toward the generation of huge profit for the insurance companies and service providers, and had nothing whatsoever of the interest of the people about it. He lauded the NHS as an achievement of the highest order and while recognising it had its problems, said that it was by financing and correction of the existing system, that the service would be continued, not by introduction of the American model, which he said, his country was fighting to overturn even as our political masters seemed determined to move towards it.
On Jeremy Corbyn he was careful not to denigrate the current Labour leadership, other than to say it was 'curious' that they could find no place for the lifelong Member for Islington North who had led the party to near victory, and who had brought hundreds of thousands of new members to the Party. Although he conceded that he was not abreast of internal party politicking within the Labour Party, he said he was struggling to "understand" exactly where the Party was at the moment. He was clearly being diplomatic in front of the cameras, because to listen to him talk, it was an absolute given that his idea of the correct political course we should be following was a million miles closer to that of Jeremy Corbyn than Kier Stamer's.
When his policies were described as radical, he said that he did not consider the provision of health care as a right, the establishment of an equitable tax system, the payment of workers public and private a fair wage in proportion to their efforts and the administration of our polities in support of the mass of the people rather than the isolated interest of the few, in any sense to be so. It was a thing of beauty to watch the faces of our prime interviewers as they heard such obvious truths spelled out, and in a way so absolutely rare and clearly done in this country, and in the case of Sophie Ridge in particular you could see her very approval of what she was hearing, in contrast to the usual obfuscation and double speak of her usual political interviewees.
If only Sanders was a UK politician and not a US one........he would be consigned to some interviewee dustbin and never heard from again.
How gut churning it must been for Kier Stamer to watch those performances and to see what a real politician of the left sounds like. Surely something inside of him must have died as his own perfidy, his own turncoat failure was so openly exposed. But he will care little, because it's all about the power. His faux socialism - and not even that, he doesn't even pretend towards a normal Labour position any more, just a different form of Toryism - has served him well. The behind the scenes movers and shakers of business and the media have given him the thumbs up, decided that he will be given a chance at the dispatch box, - hell, even decided he might be better, for let's face it, he couldn't be worse - and that's just fine by him. His purging of the left, continued vilification of the man who has more traditional Labour ethos in his little finger than Stamer has in his whole body, his cosying up to the big business interests that will promote him, will finance him - these things are serving him well and he won't abandon them and return to traditional left wing politics while ever they do. Stamer is an opportunist, a political weather-vane. He has no deep political belief system other than that which raises him to power and in this he is exactly comparable to Boris Johnson. I hope millions of viewers saw Sanders expose his political inequity publicly like that (albeit obliquely) and saw him for what he is.
I have the feeling that Stamer is being exposed, that the public are cottoning on, and that he might pay dear for this at the next election. The media and elites might be promoting him for all they are worth, but I have a feeling that the people - the ones who Bernie Sanders message was directed at, the ones who really matter in all of this - might have a different idea.
Sanders did some really high profile media programs, Good Morning Britain, and Sophie Ridge on Sunday, Andrew Marr on LBC, in which he absolutely nailed it down in terms of spelling out his multi-pronged attack on the values of our political administrations.
Chief among his arguments was the now huge disparities in wealth distribution in our societies, and the causes behind this. When our very systems become geared toward generating wealth for only a tiny elite, when the absence of progressive taxation systems allows for the accrual of staggering wealth in a few individuals (eg in the USA one percent of the population holding over ninety percent of the country's wealth) then it is people's right to question what is going wrong.
He also, when questioned on his views about health care - and the interviewers were all keen to ask about his views on the declared policies of both leading parties in the UK to increase the use of private outsourcing in the NHS - was absolutely unequivocal in his stating that health care free at the point of service was a fundamental human right. He was almost desperate in his pleading that we in the UK did not move toward the American system which was, he said, by its very nature geared only toward the generation of huge profit for the insurance companies and service providers, and had nothing whatsoever of the interest of the people about it. He lauded the NHS as an achievement of the highest order and while recognising it had its problems, said that it was by financing and correction of the existing system, that the service would be continued, not by introduction of the American model, which he said, his country was fighting to overturn even as our political masters seemed determined to move towards it.
On Jeremy Corbyn he was careful not to denigrate the current Labour leadership, other than to say it was 'curious' that they could find no place for the lifelong Member for Islington North who had led the party to near victory, and who had brought hundreds of thousands of new members to the Party. Although he conceded that he was not abreast of internal party politicking within the Labour Party, he said he was struggling to "understand" exactly where the Party was at the moment. He was clearly being diplomatic in front of the cameras, because to listen to him talk, it was an absolute given that his idea of the correct political course we should be following was a million miles closer to that of Jeremy Corbyn than Kier Stamer's.
When his policies were described as radical, he said that he did not consider the provision of health care as a right, the establishment of an equitable tax system, the payment of workers public and private a fair wage in proportion to their efforts and the administration of our polities in support of the mass of the people rather than the isolated interest of the few, in any sense to be so. It was a thing of beauty to watch the faces of our prime interviewers as they heard such obvious truths spelled out, and in a way so absolutely rare and clearly done in this country, and in the case of Sophie Ridge in particular you could see her very approval of what she was hearing, in contrast to the usual obfuscation and double speak of her usual political interviewees.
If only Sanders was a UK politician and not a US one........he would be consigned to some interviewee dustbin and never heard from again.
How gut churning it must been for Kier Stamer to watch those performances and to see what a real politician of the left sounds like. Surely something inside of him must have died as his own perfidy, his own turncoat failure was so openly exposed. But he will care little, because it's all about the power. His faux socialism - and not even that, he doesn't even pretend towards a normal Labour position any more, just a different form of Toryism - has served him well. The behind the scenes movers and shakers of business and the media have given him the thumbs up, decided that he will be given a chance at the dispatch box, - hell, even decided he might be better, for let's face it, he couldn't be worse - and that's just fine by him. His purging of the left, continued vilification of the man who has more traditional Labour ethos in his little finger than Stamer has in his whole body, his cosying up to the big business interests that will promote him, will finance him - these things are serving him well and he won't abandon them and return to traditional left wing politics while ever they do. Stamer is an opportunist, a political weather-vane. He has no deep political belief system other than that which raises him to power and in this he is exactly comparable to Boris Johnson. I hope millions of viewers saw Sanders expose his political inequity publicly like that (albeit obliquely) and saw him for what he is.
I have the feeling that Stamer is being exposed, that the public are cottoning on, and that he might pay dear for this at the next election. The media and elites might be promoting him for all they are worth, but I have a feeling that the people - the ones who Bernie Sanders message was directed at, the ones who really matter in all of this - might have a different idea.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
peter
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 11538
- Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:08 am
- Location: Another time. Another place.
- Been thanked: 6 times
It's an odd state of affairs, but the deal that will quite possibly bring Rishi Sunak's turn as PM to an end is most probably a completely unnecessary one.
For it is an unknown fact, and one rarely heard in the media, but for the vast bulk of people in Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Protocol is working very well. Not only are most people and businesses entirely happy with it - and that includes the bulk of politicians who would sit in Stormont, were the devolved parliament actually sitting - on almost every economic indicator going, Northern Ireland is doing much better than the rest of Great Britain, and it is pretty much universally recognised over there that the province is enjoying a very exalted position, getting both the benefits of membership of the EU (no food shortages over there as a topical case in point) and such minute benefits that brexit can actually being on top. In Boris Johnson's words they really are having their cake and eating it.
So why is Sunak doing this?
The answer is, to satisfy the very vocal complaints of a small minority of complainants almost exclusively contained within the DUP and the House of Commons based MPs of the ERG group upon who's goodwill Sunak's premiership depends.
So today, under great fanfare, a deal will be proclaimed that will not only throw Sunak's future into complete doubt, because neither of the above groups will be happy with it, but will also plunge the British political system into chaos once more and probably bring about yet another change of leadership and an early general election to boot. Further, it will also condemn the province of Northern Ireland to the same hell that the rest of the United Kingdom has enjoyed since leaving the EU.
And all to satisfy the right wing of the Tory Party in Westminster and a vocal minority in Northern Ireland's political community. Think on that. Because you won't likely hear it anywhere else.
This new agreement will probably do more to bolster the cause of unification in the province, as people realise what has been done to them, than just about anything else that the Westminster government could have done.
For it is an unknown fact, and one rarely heard in the media, but for the vast bulk of people in Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Protocol is working very well. Not only are most people and businesses entirely happy with it - and that includes the bulk of politicians who would sit in Stormont, were the devolved parliament actually sitting - on almost every economic indicator going, Northern Ireland is doing much better than the rest of Great Britain, and it is pretty much universally recognised over there that the province is enjoying a very exalted position, getting both the benefits of membership of the EU (no food shortages over there as a topical case in point) and such minute benefits that brexit can actually being on top. In Boris Johnson's words they really are having their cake and eating it.
So why is Sunak doing this?
The answer is, to satisfy the very vocal complaints of a small minority of complainants almost exclusively contained within the DUP and the House of Commons based MPs of the ERG group upon who's goodwill Sunak's premiership depends.
So today, under great fanfare, a deal will be proclaimed that will not only throw Sunak's future into complete doubt, because neither of the above groups will be happy with it, but will also plunge the British political system into chaos once more and probably bring about yet another change of leadership and an early general election to boot. Further, it will also condemn the province of Northern Ireland to the same hell that the rest of the United Kingdom has enjoyed since leaving the EU.
And all to satisfy the right wing of the Tory Party in Westminster and a vocal minority in Northern Ireland's political community. Think on that. Because you won't likely hear it anywhere else.
This new agreement will probably do more to bolster the cause of unification in the province, as people realise what has been done to them, than just about anything else that the Westminster government could have done.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
peter
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 11538
- Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:08 am
- Location: Another time. Another place.
- Been thanked: 6 times
I'm devastated.
I just spent 3 hours doing a breakdown of the Sunak deal, spelling out its achievements and pitfalls (of which there are many) and looking at where it might succeed, where it might fall, only to have the site log me out before I posted and thereby loosing me the whole thing.
I tried to download the script, only to have the login page saved instead of my work.
To say I'm gutted is an understatement. I have no heart to repeat the process, to try to recreate the post.
Suffice to say that the deal, being lauded today, will assuredly be vilified in equal measure tomorrow.
If anybody actually reads this stuff, to them I apologise. It's hardly the disaster of the century - some people loose entire lifetimes worth of work in a fell swoop - but to me it was a thing of value.
C'est la vie.
I just spent 3 hours doing a breakdown of the Sunak deal, spelling out its achievements and pitfalls (of which there are many) and looking at where it might succeed, where it might fall, only to have the site log me out before I posted and thereby loosing me the whole thing.
I tried to download the script, only to have the login page saved instead of my work.
To say I'm gutted is an understatement. I have no heart to repeat the process, to try to recreate the post.
Suffice to say that the deal, being lauded today, will assuredly be vilified in equal measure tomorrow.
If anybody actually reads this stuff, to them I apologise. It's hardly the disaster of the century - some people loose entire lifetimes worth of work in a fell swoop - but to me it was a thing of value.
C'est la vie.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
peter
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 11538
- Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:08 am
- Location: Another time. Another place.
- Been thanked: 6 times
Okay. Deep breath.
I can never replicate what I did earlier but let's at least try to get some of it down in a half intelligible form.
Let's just say that by some miracle the DUP were to accept the Sunak drawn up Windsor Framework, and they were to agree to go back into Stormont and take their place in the power sharing arrangement. At what point are they ever going to buy the EU making laws that have jurisdiction in the province without calling for the Stormont brake to be applied? (Nb. The Stormont brake is Rishi Sunak's trick to make it look like UK sovereignty has been returned to the province in full. It gives Stormont the power to halt any EU law that has effect in the province, if they consider that effect not to be in their interest. The matter is then passed, ultimately, to Westminster, who retain a right of veto over the law.)
Anyone who thinks that they will simply take each law on its merits and only call for the brake in exceptional circumstances understands nothing about the Northern Irish protestant temperament whatsoever. Imagine, to give you a clue, a parliament half full of Ian Paisley's. Reasonable, they will not be. They will oppose any and every law coming from Brussels as a matter of principle. This will put the Westminster administration in a constant position of being stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea. If they exercise their veto whenever the DUP call for it they will piss off Europe. If they refuse they will piss off the DUP. The latter will not expect to have the mechanism and not use it.
Next we have the ECJ problem. It doesn't matter how much longer you make the metaphorical corridor, how many doors you have off it - if the European Court still sits at the end of it for dispute resolution the DUP will never buy it. That is the whole basis of their gripe; that they are subject to EU laws and jurisdiction that the rest of the UK is not. If the ECJ still have a role in administering Northern Ireland law, then no matter how far removed, how many steps it takes to get to that point, the DUP will never swallow it.
Thirdly, Rishi Sunak has made big on all the concessions he has won from the EU, but we have heard nothing of the concessions he has granted to the EU in return. And trust me, the EU do not give something like a veto over its law making procedures to a non-member state without getting something pretty hefty in return. I suspect it will be some kind of rebalanced version of the deal that allows Northern Ireland effective honorary membership of the single market - an advantageous position that many in the EU have not been at all happy with, taking the view that, "Why should we be paying dear for advantages as members, for things you are giving away free to non-member stares?" Ursula von der Leyen is not going back to Brussels saying, "Look! I've given them all these concessions and got nothing back in return! She has to sell this to her member states and they are going to want something tangible in return.
I suspect that Northern Irish people will suddenly find that they not only share exactly the same stuff as we in the rest of the UK have on our shelves, but will also share the gaps as well. There will be something deep in the text of this that buys back some of the earlier concessions they (the EU) were forced to make that allows for this 'sweet-spot' the province enjoys. How are the people of Northern Ireland going to react when they suddenly start to experience the 'Brexit benefits' that we in the rest of the UK have enjoyed (like falling investment, growth, exports, restricted imports, movement, labour etc)? They may start wondering if they haven't been sold a pup.
And domestically Rishi Sunak has had a clear run at it. He hasn't been tasked yet with the repercussions of his decision to call a halt to the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill. The moment anything goes wrong with the operation of the Windsor Framework, he'll be roasted alive by the right of the Conservative Party.
And go wrong it will. Sorry, but thousands of man-hours were not spent trying to sort out the Brexit trilemma to no avail because it was easy. To dress up the problems in a tangled skein of instruments and legal agreements does not make them go away. Under the Windsor Framework, beneath and behind all of the intricate wording, the convoluted logic, the multiple sub-sections, the same problems exist, and like a corpses buried in the New Orleans basin, it doesn't matter how deep the hole you shove them into, sooner or later they work their way to the surface.
I can never replicate what I did earlier but let's at least try to get some of it down in a half intelligible form.
Let's just say that by some miracle the DUP were to accept the Sunak drawn up Windsor Framework, and they were to agree to go back into Stormont and take their place in the power sharing arrangement. At what point are they ever going to buy the EU making laws that have jurisdiction in the province without calling for the Stormont brake to be applied? (Nb. The Stormont brake is Rishi Sunak's trick to make it look like UK sovereignty has been returned to the province in full. It gives Stormont the power to halt any EU law that has effect in the province, if they consider that effect not to be in their interest. The matter is then passed, ultimately, to Westminster, who retain a right of veto over the law.)
Anyone who thinks that they will simply take each law on its merits and only call for the brake in exceptional circumstances understands nothing about the Northern Irish protestant temperament whatsoever. Imagine, to give you a clue, a parliament half full of Ian Paisley's. Reasonable, they will not be. They will oppose any and every law coming from Brussels as a matter of principle. This will put the Westminster administration in a constant position of being stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea. If they exercise their veto whenever the DUP call for it they will piss off Europe. If they refuse they will piss off the DUP. The latter will not expect to have the mechanism and not use it.
Next we have the ECJ problem. It doesn't matter how much longer you make the metaphorical corridor, how many doors you have off it - if the European Court still sits at the end of it for dispute resolution the DUP will never buy it. That is the whole basis of their gripe; that they are subject to EU laws and jurisdiction that the rest of the UK is not. If the ECJ still have a role in administering Northern Ireland law, then no matter how far removed, how many steps it takes to get to that point, the DUP will never swallow it.
Thirdly, Rishi Sunak has made big on all the concessions he has won from the EU, but we have heard nothing of the concessions he has granted to the EU in return. And trust me, the EU do not give something like a veto over its law making procedures to a non-member state without getting something pretty hefty in return. I suspect it will be some kind of rebalanced version of the deal that allows Northern Ireland effective honorary membership of the single market - an advantageous position that many in the EU have not been at all happy with, taking the view that, "Why should we be paying dear for advantages as members, for things you are giving away free to non-member stares?" Ursula von der Leyen is not going back to Brussels saying, "Look! I've given them all these concessions and got nothing back in return! She has to sell this to her member states and they are going to want something tangible in return.
I suspect that Northern Irish people will suddenly find that they not only share exactly the same stuff as we in the rest of the UK have on our shelves, but will also share the gaps as well. There will be something deep in the text of this that buys back some of the earlier concessions they (the EU) were forced to make that allows for this 'sweet-spot' the province enjoys. How are the people of Northern Ireland going to react when they suddenly start to experience the 'Brexit benefits' that we in the rest of the UK have enjoyed (like falling investment, growth, exports, restricted imports, movement, labour etc)? They may start wondering if they haven't been sold a pup.
And domestically Rishi Sunak has had a clear run at it. He hasn't been tasked yet with the repercussions of his decision to call a halt to the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill. The moment anything goes wrong with the operation of the Windsor Framework, he'll be roasted alive by the right of the Conservative Party.
And go wrong it will. Sorry, but thousands of man-hours were not spent trying to sort out the Brexit trilemma to no avail because it was easy. To dress up the problems in a tangled skein of instruments and legal agreements does not make them go away. Under the Windsor Framework, beneath and behind all of the intricate wording, the convoluted logic, the multiple sub-sections, the same problems exist, and like a corpses buried in the New Orleans basin, it doesn't matter how deep the hole you shove them into, sooner or later they work their way to the surface.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
peter
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 11538
- Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:08 am
- Location: Another time. Another place.
- Been thanked: 6 times
How bizarre it was to watch Rishi Sunak on the news last night, on a visit to Northern Ireland to sell his new Windsor Framework agreement, telling an audience in a factory that they were enjoying a privileged position that no-one else in the world enjoyed - access to both the UK market and the European single market!
But hang on Rishi - that was the position that the whole of the UK enjoyed before you and your party took us out of the EU?
---------0-------
Yesterday, I went for a walk in my home town.
It's a smallish market town in the South West of England and it has always been a great pleasure of mine to occasionally wander its streets and alleyways browsing the shops, small and large, looking for second hand books, checking out new games, just generally wandering.
Yesterday I cut through a small alley with a half dozen or so small independent shops along its length and was suddenly aware that all of them were either closed or closing. I don't mean for the day - I mean permanently.
As I came out I to one of the main thoroughfares I noticed the a further half dozen of the shops were empty, where but months ago apparently thriving businesses had been running.
It occurred to me that my town was dying.
Before my very eyes, and within almost months, the heart and soul of the town, its variety of small and medium sized shops selling everything from books to baseball bat's, was withering away to leave behind an empty shell, a ghost town in which depressed people wandered half empty streets, a place where vibrancy and optimism had gone to the wall along with all of the businesses that had formerly occupied the now empty shops.
This is the heritage of thirteen years of the Conservative government. Businesses that twelve months ago were just about holding their own - surviving, but not much more after twelve years of austerity and bexit and pandemic - suddenly found themselves hit by rabid inflation, rising energy costs and falling sales, and had simply decided that enough was enough. That the near dead horses of their businesses after the twelve years of battering the 'party of business' had given them, had finally breathed their last. That flogging them further was a lost cause.
So next time we get an election, next time a grinning Tory MP hopeful comes knocking on your door, tell him to come to my town and witness what his party has done. A once vibrant town turned into a rubbish strewn wasteland, buildings unkempt and unloved, a place where the homeless beg in alleys and the businesses are no more, the people as shabby and broken down as the buildings around them. And ask him if it was all worth it? And what exactly was the 'Conservative vision' that he signed up for? What great plan was it, that inspired him to follow these wreckers of our towns and cities, these purloiners of our present and future prosperity?
Come to my town Mr Sunak, and see what your policies have done.
---------0-------
And in praise of the joy of small things (and believe me, I know all about the joy of small things
) I can do no better than to recommend that you go search out the vid of the guy cracking the world record m&m stacking challenge. Truly a thing of (small and unstable) beauty.
But hang on Rishi - that was the position that the whole of the UK enjoyed before you and your party took us out of the EU?
---------0-------
Yesterday, I went for a walk in my home town.
It's a smallish market town in the South West of England and it has always been a great pleasure of mine to occasionally wander its streets and alleyways browsing the shops, small and large, looking for second hand books, checking out new games, just generally wandering.
Yesterday I cut through a small alley with a half dozen or so small independent shops along its length and was suddenly aware that all of them were either closed or closing. I don't mean for the day - I mean permanently.
As I came out I to one of the main thoroughfares I noticed the a further half dozen of the shops were empty, where but months ago apparently thriving businesses had been running.
It occurred to me that my town was dying.
Before my very eyes, and within almost months, the heart and soul of the town, its variety of small and medium sized shops selling everything from books to baseball bat's, was withering away to leave behind an empty shell, a ghost town in which depressed people wandered half empty streets, a place where vibrancy and optimism had gone to the wall along with all of the businesses that had formerly occupied the now empty shops.
This is the heritage of thirteen years of the Conservative government. Businesses that twelve months ago were just about holding their own - surviving, but not much more after twelve years of austerity and bexit and pandemic - suddenly found themselves hit by rabid inflation, rising energy costs and falling sales, and had simply decided that enough was enough. That the near dead horses of their businesses after the twelve years of battering the 'party of business' had given them, had finally breathed their last. That flogging them further was a lost cause.
So next time we get an election, next time a grinning Tory MP hopeful comes knocking on your door, tell him to come to my town and witness what his party has done. A once vibrant town turned into a rubbish strewn wasteland, buildings unkempt and unloved, a place where the homeless beg in alleys and the businesses are no more, the people as shabby and broken down as the buildings around them. And ask him if it was all worth it? And what exactly was the 'Conservative vision' that he signed up for? What great plan was it, that inspired him to follow these wreckers of our towns and cities, these purloiners of our present and future prosperity?
Come to my town Mr Sunak, and see what your policies have done.
---------0-------
And in praise of the joy of small things (and believe me, I know all about the joy of small things
) I can do no better than to recommend that you go search out the vid of the guy cracking the world record m&m stacking challenge. Truly a thing of (small and unstable) beauty.The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
peter
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 11538
- Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:08 am
- Location: Another time. Another place.
- Been thanked: 6 times
If what the papers say is to be believed, Rishi Sunak seems minded to press ahead with the Windsor Framework irrespective of whether the DUP are on board with it or not.
But let's look at it from their point of view.
Okay, they've been given the so called Stormont brake. This is supposed to allow them to put a stop to any laws which effect the province that they are not happy with, putting effective sovereignty of the region back into their hands. But if they have to jump through so many hoops to apply the brake that it becomes near impossible to do, and there's this 'exceptional circumstances' wording that has not been in any way defined, but could mean anything - well, by now the thing is starting to look pretty ropey.
Andrew Marr made the point that it was cunning of Sunak to tie the (supposedly) effective return of sovereignty to the province to the return of the DUP to the power sharing agreement in Stormont (if they aren't sitting in the devolved parliament, they can't exercise the brake) and thereby putting pressure on them to resume their sitting. (Nb. It is the DUP that are refusing to sit in the parliament due to the protocol operation as it stood, and the parliament cannot sit unless all parties in the power sharing agreement agree to do so.) But I'm not sure that he might not have misjudged it. The DUP will not react well to being pressured and are more likely to respond by becoming ever more obstinate than bowing to the pressure.
Ex Tory minister and Brexit Party MEP Anne Widdecombe was scathing about the deal. She considered it a sham that would fall apart as soon as any scrutiny or pressure was applied to it, and it was interesting that when she said so, she was at the time, being interviewed by Tory MP and prominent ERG member Jacob Rees-Mogg. He has not stood in parliament and said anything to disparage the agreement as yet, but he certainly didn't disagree with anything Anne Widdecombe was saying during the interview and I think we may take it that this was an interview with purpose. In fairness he didn't publicly agree with her point either, but it's a fair shake that he knew she was going to diss the Framework and probably wouldn't have asked for her comments if he didn't want to send a subliminal message to Sunak thereby. Government spads are going to be keeping a pretty close eye on these extramural activities of their MPs in the next few days and weeks, and the MPs know this. On the European side, she said, the deal was being presented as a win that allowed them to retain law making capacity in the province, kept the role of the ECJ central to the proceedings and gave only minimal concessions around the edges in return.
I'm in agreement with Widdecombe that the PM is making a good effort at talking the talk, polishing the turd as Johnson would have put it, but that when the chips are down it simply won't fly. It's a chicken that won't fight and where that is going to leave us is anybodies guess.
---------0---------
I saw a bloke talking at the 'Stop the War' meeting in London (I think) chaired by ex Glasgow MP George Galloway and this guy seemed quite on the ball in his assessment of the Ukrainian situation. An ex foreign office diplomat with years of service in both Russia and Poland, he made one particular point of interest. He began by saying that when the Soviet Union unravelled, it became apparent that Western security assessment of Soviet capabilities were grossly overestimated. It turned out that they had something like forty percent of the military capabilities that we had been advised, of which perhaps twenty percent o
were actually fully operational. The exaggeration, he said, had done nothing but serve the interest of the military industrial complex, upon whom billions of dollars/pounds had been lavished and who's directors and shareholders had secured fortunes on the back of.
The same was absolutely true today he told us.
We are being told, he said, that we must pour billions of pounds into supporting the Ukrainian army (which was actually holding back the Russian forces pretty well before all of the military hardware started arriving) because if we don't, then Russian ambition will not stop there, but will see them encroach on through other Eastern European states in future operations of the same kind.
This by the army that became bogged down outside Kiev, could not take it even in the soft spring weather let alone the harsh winter. The army whose disorganisation and inability to engage the logistics needed to take a single capital city of it's closest neighbour, held only by a rag-tag army of semi-professional soldiers - this army was supposed to be the one which would march onward through Poland, Germany, Holland, would represent a threat to Western interests all the way to London. It was absurd the man said. If the current war had demonstrated anything, it was that Putin's army could not organise a piss up in a brewery,
let alone represent a threat to NATO and the West. You have to admit - he might have a point.
On the issue of Crimea he made the following observation. Crimea belongs neither to the Russians nor the Ukrainians. Stalin emptied the indigenous population of Crimean Tartars from the region in the 1950's, it is to these people that the region belongs, if anyone at all. Russia, though we tend to se it as a country, is better seen as an empire comparable to that of the British, alongside whose growth it was effectively contemporaneous. The viewing it as a country comes rather from our perspective of seeing empire as something that demands sea travel to get around. The Russian empire was effectively established over land during its period of growth, and as such we tend not to see it as such. If, the man said, you believe that the Chagos islanders should be allowed to return to their home island, that it should be returned to their governance, you would be a hypocrite if you did not believe the same for the Crimean Tartars who were forcibly relocated from the Crimea only ten years earlier.
Both the Ukrainian state and the Russian were known before this thing to be led by corrupt oligarchical administrations and Putin had no more interest in the Russians of the Donbas than Bush has in the citizens of Ukraine. This is about money, power and territory/resources. It's about different factions of the one percent using the people of their countries as cannon fodder to look after, further, their own interest and extend their own reach, their own ability to project power. And the invisible interests of the military industrial complex are lapping it up. British Aerospace has announced huge orders going into the billions on the back of this conflict and they are only one of the huge armaments industries in receipt of such windfalls. They will have no arguments with this conflict carrying on for a decade, and if it does, if tens of thousands more die in pursuit of a so-called victory, then there is every chance that a negotiated settlement will be signed that will still look very much similar to the one that could have been drawn up almost from day one. There are,the man said, no good guys at the top on either side of this war; just those looking after their own interest at the expense of the people who pay the price.
The man certainly agreed that the invasion was illegal in terms of international law in the same way as was the Western invasion of Iraq. But propagating the war was not the way it should have been addressed. Look at the cost to the people and infrastructure of the country. War, he said, was an evil that would never be understood from the distance of an armchair in an uninvolved country. It had to be experienced first hand for its truly terrible nature to be comprehended. Once having done so, no doubt could remain in the eyes of the beholder that another way must be found.
Don't know if I agree with all of this, but it's an interesting perspective.
But let's look at it from their point of view.
Okay, they've been given the so called Stormont brake. This is supposed to allow them to put a stop to any laws which effect the province that they are not happy with, putting effective sovereignty of the region back into their hands. But if they have to jump through so many hoops to apply the brake that it becomes near impossible to do, and there's this 'exceptional circumstances' wording that has not been in any way defined, but could mean anything - well, by now the thing is starting to look pretty ropey.
Andrew Marr made the point that it was cunning of Sunak to tie the (supposedly) effective return of sovereignty to the province to the return of the DUP to the power sharing agreement in Stormont (if they aren't sitting in the devolved parliament, they can't exercise the brake) and thereby putting pressure on them to resume their sitting. (Nb. It is the DUP that are refusing to sit in the parliament due to the protocol operation as it stood, and the parliament cannot sit unless all parties in the power sharing agreement agree to do so.) But I'm not sure that he might not have misjudged it. The DUP will not react well to being pressured and are more likely to respond by becoming ever more obstinate than bowing to the pressure.
Ex Tory minister and Brexit Party MEP Anne Widdecombe was scathing about the deal. She considered it a sham that would fall apart as soon as any scrutiny or pressure was applied to it, and it was interesting that when she said so, she was at the time, being interviewed by Tory MP and prominent ERG member Jacob Rees-Mogg. He has not stood in parliament and said anything to disparage the agreement as yet, but he certainly didn't disagree with anything Anne Widdecombe was saying during the interview and I think we may take it that this was an interview with purpose. In fairness he didn't publicly agree with her point either, but it's a fair shake that he knew she was going to diss the Framework and probably wouldn't have asked for her comments if he didn't want to send a subliminal message to Sunak thereby. Government spads are going to be keeping a pretty close eye on these extramural activities of their MPs in the next few days and weeks, and the MPs know this. On the European side, she said, the deal was being presented as a win that allowed them to retain law making capacity in the province, kept the role of the ECJ central to the proceedings and gave only minimal concessions around the edges in return.
I'm in agreement with Widdecombe that the PM is making a good effort at talking the talk, polishing the turd as Johnson would have put it, but that when the chips are down it simply won't fly. It's a chicken that won't fight and where that is going to leave us is anybodies guess.
---------0---------
I saw a bloke talking at the 'Stop the War' meeting in London (I think) chaired by ex Glasgow MP George Galloway and this guy seemed quite on the ball in his assessment of the Ukrainian situation. An ex foreign office diplomat with years of service in both Russia and Poland, he made one particular point of interest. He began by saying that when the Soviet Union unravelled, it became apparent that Western security assessment of Soviet capabilities were grossly overestimated. It turned out that they had something like forty percent of the military capabilities that we had been advised, of which perhaps twenty percent o
were actually fully operational. The exaggeration, he said, had done nothing but serve the interest of the military industrial complex, upon whom billions of dollars/pounds had been lavished and who's directors and shareholders had secured fortunes on the back of.
The same was absolutely true today he told us.
We are being told, he said, that we must pour billions of pounds into supporting the Ukrainian army (which was actually holding back the Russian forces pretty well before all of the military hardware started arriving) because if we don't, then Russian ambition will not stop there, but will see them encroach on through other Eastern European states in future operations of the same kind.
This by the army that became bogged down outside Kiev, could not take it even in the soft spring weather let alone the harsh winter. The army whose disorganisation and inability to engage the logistics needed to take a single capital city of it's closest neighbour, held only by a rag-tag army of semi-professional soldiers - this army was supposed to be the one which would march onward through Poland, Germany, Holland, would represent a threat to Western interests all the way to London. It was absurd the man said. If the current war had demonstrated anything, it was that Putin's army could not organise a piss up in a brewery,
let alone represent a threat to NATO and the West. You have to admit - he might have a point.
On the issue of Crimea he made the following observation. Crimea belongs neither to the Russians nor the Ukrainians. Stalin emptied the indigenous population of Crimean Tartars from the region in the 1950's, it is to these people that the region belongs, if anyone at all. Russia, though we tend to se it as a country, is better seen as an empire comparable to that of the British, alongside whose growth it was effectively contemporaneous. The viewing it as a country comes rather from our perspective of seeing empire as something that demands sea travel to get around. The Russian empire was effectively established over land during its period of growth, and as such we tend not to see it as such. If, the man said, you believe that the Chagos islanders should be allowed to return to their home island, that it should be returned to their governance, you would be a hypocrite if you did not believe the same for the Crimean Tartars who were forcibly relocated from the Crimea only ten years earlier.
Both the Ukrainian state and the Russian were known before this thing to be led by corrupt oligarchical administrations and Putin had no more interest in the Russians of the Donbas than Bush has in the citizens of Ukraine. This is about money, power and territory/resources. It's about different factions of the one percent using the people of their countries as cannon fodder to look after, further, their own interest and extend their own reach, their own ability to project power. And the invisible interests of the military industrial complex are lapping it up. British Aerospace has announced huge orders going into the billions on the back of this conflict and they are only one of the huge armaments industries in receipt of such windfalls. They will have no arguments with this conflict carrying on for a decade, and if it does, if tens of thousands more die in pursuit of a so-called victory, then there is every chance that a negotiated settlement will be signed that will still look very much similar to the one that could have been drawn up almost from day one. There are,the man said, no good guys at the top on either side of this war; just those looking after their own interest at the expense of the people who pay the price.
The man certainly agreed that the invasion was illegal in terms of international law in the same way as was the Western invasion of Iraq. But propagating the war was not the way it should have been addressed. Look at the cost to the people and infrastructure of the country. War, he said, was an evil that would never be understood from the distance of an armchair in an uninvolved country. It had to be experienced first hand for its truly terrible nature to be comprehended. Once having done so, no doubt could remain in the eyes of the beholder that another way must be found.
Don't know if I agree with all of this, but it's an interesting perspective.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
peter
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 11538
- Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:08 am
- Location: Another time. Another place.
- Been thanked: 6 times
Did officials in the Department of Health discuss a cull of Britain's domestic cats in the early days of the pandemic as reported in the Daily Star today?
As an owner of two much loved cats who are as much family members as anyone else in my household, the idea fills me with horror. I'm certain that it would not have been either a seriously considered idea, nor would the practicality of the thing been long spoken of before it would have been discarded as unviable.......but then I remember - people were locked down in their houses, forbidden from seeing their dying relatives, unable to visit their families and loved ones, worship in the places of faith they frequented, bury their dead family members...... and I wonder?
My God! What did they do to us? How did they do this? What was it all about? As the arguments and outrage over the Matt Hancock emails and WhatsApp messages rages, and the Covid enquiry begins its tortuous examination of what was done wrong, what was gotten right, what would we do different, I begin to wonder whether they would really have come round, door to door, gathering up domestic cats, for a mass euthanasia program. I mean, in the light of everything else they did, surely this is no more extraordinary or impossible to conceive?
And what would I have done? For certain there is nothing I would ever have willingly allowed them to do to my cats. I would have been dead on the ground before I would have allowed anyone near them - of this there is no doubt. Is this the reason that they did not decide to follow through with such an outlandish proposal? That simply too many people like me would never have complied, would have hidden their pets, and ultimately perished protecting them?
Or perhaps I'm out on a limb on this? Perhaps I simply love my cats too much, too irrationally. But I simply don't believe I'm on my own in this. But anyway, let's shelve this horrible idea and go back to the enquiry. In my opinion, it's an absolute must that not only are the various non pharmacological interventions considered in terms of their efficacy - but also in terms of their necessity. The enquiry must consider all of the things that were done to us, never mind the ones that weren't. Did these things actually save the lives it is claimed they did? Could an equal number of lives have been saved without following the Draconian path we took - by say ring fencing the vulnerable early on and allowing for here immunity to build up in the general populace (who were after all at minimal risk) as was proposed by many eminent epidemiologists. Was there any need, indeed, for this to be a public health, as opposed to a strictly medical, issue at all? Was it acceptable to use fear as a tool for public manipulation, to heighten compliance, such that a large number of the population to this day, still live in terror of the invisible threat that they imagine to be all around them? In short, did we tear apart our society, our economy, our country, for no realistic end?
If the enquiry does not consider these questions, but merely limits itself to a consideration of how the policy followed could be altered, tweaked, to make it more effective in a future pandemic situation - one where we had a real threat from a lethally virulent virus, not the highly limited virulence in terms of the risk to the general population that was represented by Covid-19 even at its worst, then it will fail to have been an enquiry in the proper sense of the term at all.
As an owner of two much loved cats who are as much family members as anyone else in my household, the idea fills me with horror. I'm certain that it would not have been either a seriously considered idea, nor would the practicality of the thing been long spoken of before it would have been discarded as unviable.......but then I remember - people were locked down in their houses, forbidden from seeing their dying relatives, unable to visit their families and loved ones, worship in the places of faith they frequented, bury their dead family members...... and I wonder?
My God! What did they do to us? How did they do this? What was it all about? As the arguments and outrage over the Matt Hancock emails and WhatsApp messages rages, and the Covid enquiry begins its tortuous examination of what was done wrong, what was gotten right, what would we do different, I begin to wonder whether they would really have come round, door to door, gathering up domestic cats, for a mass euthanasia program. I mean, in the light of everything else they did, surely this is no more extraordinary or impossible to conceive?
And what would I have done? For certain there is nothing I would ever have willingly allowed them to do to my cats. I would have been dead on the ground before I would have allowed anyone near them - of this there is no doubt. Is this the reason that they did not decide to follow through with such an outlandish proposal? That simply too many people like me would never have complied, would have hidden their pets, and ultimately perished protecting them?
Or perhaps I'm out on a limb on this? Perhaps I simply love my cats too much, too irrationally. But I simply don't believe I'm on my own in this. But anyway, let's shelve this horrible idea and go back to the enquiry. In my opinion, it's an absolute must that not only are the various non pharmacological interventions considered in terms of their efficacy - but also in terms of their necessity. The enquiry must consider all of the things that were done to us, never mind the ones that weren't. Did these things actually save the lives it is claimed they did? Could an equal number of lives have been saved without following the Draconian path we took - by say ring fencing the vulnerable early on and allowing for here immunity to build up in the general populace (who were after all at minimal risk) as was proposed by many eminent epidemiologists. Was there any need, indeed, for this to be a public health, as opposed to a strictly medical, issue at all? Was it acceptable to use fear as a tool for public manipulation, to heighten compliance, such that a large number of the population to this day, still live in terror of the invisible threat that they imagine to be all around them? In short, did we tear apart our society, our economy, our country, for no realistic end?
If the enquiry does not consider these questions, but merely limits itself to a consideration of how the policy followed could be altered, tweaked, to make it more effective in a future pandemic situation - one where we had a real threat from a lethally virulent virus, not the highly limited virulence in terms of the risk to the general population that was represented by Covid-19 even at its worst, then it will fail to have been an enquiry in the proper sense of the term at all.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
peter
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 11538
- Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:08 am
- Location: Another time. Another place.
- Been thanked: 6 times
Yesterday Queen Camilla was at the world famous Eden Project in Cornwall during which she spent some time with Fiona Bruce, presenter of the BBC flagship antiques program, Antiques Roadshow.
I was reminded of time I once attended the filming of one of the episodes, at some other west country venue, outside on a particularly hot summers day some ten or fifteen years ago.
I had taken some wooden carved panels for examination and was rather exited. I'd seen some similar ones on eBay, medieval workmanship detailing peasant activities in the fields and some animals, and they had been priced very highly. I'd inherited the panels many years previously, but had little knowledge of their age or value and was keen to see what I had on my hands.
I queued up in a long line with all the other hopefuls, until after a couple of hours I reached a preliminary assessment desk. I was then directed into a second queue, that for the specialist who would look at my particular items. By about four hours in I was starting to flag in the heat, but thankfully was next in line for viewing and about ten or fifteen feet from the table at which my designated expert was sitting. For some reason he had to go off with the person he was seeing to consult another one of the team and while he was away, suddenly there appeared a couple with an extremely elderly lady who had been overcome by the heat.
They guided her to the chair at the empty table in which she swooned for a moment or two before being sick on the table. My man, coming back to his table at that moment and taking stock of the situation did not seem best pleased. He was passing by me, keeping his distance while the commotion at his table was being dealt with and noticing me, almost as an knee-jerk reaction he snatched one of my panels.
"Yes," he said, "Very nice. Victorian arts and crafts copies done in some carving class of the type popular at the time - completely worthless," and so saying disappeared from the scene post haste leaving me in a state of discombobulation at the rapidity of the termination of my participation.
So my Antiques Roadshow dream ended. Needless to say, I wasn't featured on the program and neither did I make the 'also rans', any crowd shot that perhaps I might have been seen in presumably ending up on the cutting room floor. I left the venue an older and wiser man, not the possessor of a recently discovered fortune, floating on the vision of future auction successes yet to come, but certainly somewhat more tanned than I'm usually found to be even in the best of summers.
--------0--------
Suddenly the papers are full of partygate stories again.
The parliamentary privileges committee yesterday released some preliminary information information concerning the questions they expect Boris Johnson to answer when they interview him in two or so weeks time, but also make the observation that there is reason to believe that he may indeed have mislaid parliament in his comments before the House at the time.
Composed of seven members, four Tory and three Labour, and headed by the well known ex Labour minister Harriet Harman, the committee can hardly be said to be unbalanced or not independent in any way, but it nevertheless seems rather coincidental in terms of timing, this release of information that says no more than we all already know, but certainly does the ex PM no good in terms of his reputation (what reputation, you say?). Because it comes right at the time when Boris Johnson is preparing to mount his assault on the Sunak drawn up replacement agreement for Johnson's own withdrawal agreement, and might actually stir up discontent that exists within the backbenchers elsewhere, and cause it to coalesce around himself.
Now I don't say that there is a connection, it might be stretching credulity too far to think that the committee could have been prevailed upon to undermine Johnson's credibility right at the moment when he could become most troublesome to the now PM, but I just point out the coincidence. Make of it what you will.
(Boris for his part, claims there is "not a shred of evidence" that he misled parliament when he told them that no rules had been broken in Number 10. That would include the photos of you standing there, glass in hand with a group of undistanced people, bottles of wine and spirits on the table and takeaway containers would it? Or the sworn statement that has you saying at the event that it must be the most socially undistanced gathering in London at that moment? Or the one that worried that people might learn of a "piss up" at the PM's establishment, and that concerns about such a leak were (given the facts) not unwarranted?. No Boris - of course all of this evidence has you vindicated in your protestations of innocence. It's all a Labour plot to undermine you isn't it? The 127 fines that the metropolitan police dished out to people for misdemeanours at your premises, the fact that the Grey investigation and the metropolitan police investigation came independently to the same conclusion - all a Labour plot, isn't it? Nothing to see here!)
--------0--------
Glastonbury organisers are having to make excuses for there not being a female artist or band within the three recently named headline acts for this year, one for the culmination of each day of the festival.
They have been particularly inventive in their explanation, describing it as the result of a 'pipeline problem' with the availability of female artists at the time of the festival. Not, on reflection, perhaps the best of terms in which to describe the problem, but hey - it is what it is?
-------0-------
It will be interesting to see what the reaction in Scotland will be to the Stone of Scone (aka the Coronation Stone) being returned to Westminster for the King's coronation. From 1296 to 1996 the stone was held captive by the English, a source of much resentment in Scotland where the stone was the traditional seat upon which Scottish monarchs were crowned, and its return by the Blair government was the cause of much celebration.
Now ex SNP leader Alec Salmon has said that the stone should not be returned to London for the coronation, a condition upon which its return to Scotland was agreed when it was handed back.
In the UK, and in Scotland in particular, such seemingly archaic things can take on a cultural significance that belies their apparent simplicity. The mere returning of the stone can be seen as a tipping of the cap of the whole Scottish people to the English, and a return, even for so brief a time - a few days at most - could become an event around which Scottish nationalism could coalesce, just when there are signs that its popularity might be a little on the wane.
Salmond's call for a refusal to return the stone might go unnoticed - most probably will - but just possibly it could become a 'diplomatic incident', were it to catch the public imagination of the independently minded portion of the Scottish populace.
I'll watch this one with interest.
I was reminded of time I once attended the filming of one of the episodes, at some other west country venue, outside on a particularly hot summers day some ten or fifteen years ago.
I had taken some wooden carved panels for examination and was rather exited. I'd seen some similar ones on eBay, medieval workmanship detailing peasant activities in the fields and some animals, and they had been priced very highly. I'd inherited the panels many years previously, but had little knowledge of their age or value and was keen to see what I had on my hands.
I queued up in a long line with all the other hopefuls, until after a couple of hours I reached a preliminary assessment desk. I was then directed into a second queue, that for the specialist who would look at my particular items. By about four hours in I was starting to flag in the heat, but thankfully was next in line for viewing and about ten or fifteen feet from the table at which my designated expert was sitting. For some reason he had to go off with the person he was seeing to consult another one of the team and while he was away, suddenly there appeared a couple with an extremely elderly lady who had been overcome by the heat.
They guided her to the chair at the empty table in which she swooned for a moment or two before being sick on the table. My man, coming back to his table at that moment and taking stock of the situation did not seem best pleased. He was passing by me, keeping his distance while the commotion at his table was being dealt with and noticing me, almost as an knee-jerk reaction he snatched one of my panels.
"Yes," he said, "Very nice. Victorian arts and crafts copies done in some carving class of the type popular at the time - completely worthless," and so saying disappeared from the scene post haste leaving me in a state of discombobulation at the rapidity of the termination of my participation.
So my Antiques Roadshow dream ended. Needless to say, I wasn't featured on the program and neither did I make the 'also rans', any crowd shot that perhaps I might have been seen in presumably ending up on the cutting room floor. I left the venue an older and wiser man, not the possessor of a recently discovered fortune, floating on the vision of future auction successes yet to come, but certainly somewhat more tanned than I'm usually found to be even in the best of summers.
--------0--------
Suddenly the papers are full of partygate stories again.
The parliamentary privileges committee yesterday released some preliminary information information concerning the questions they expect Boris Johnson to answer when they interview him in two or so weeks time, but also make the observation that there is reason to believe that he may indeed have mislaid parliament in his comments before the House at the time.
Composed of seven members, four Tory and three Labour, and headed by the well known ex Labour minister Harriet Harman, the committee can hardly be said to be unbalanced or not independent in any way, but it nevertheless seems rather coincidental in terms of timing, this release of information that says no more than we all already know, but certainly does the ex PM no good in terms of his reputation (what reputation, you say?). Because it comes right at the time when Boris Johnson is preparing to mount his assault on the Sunak drawn up replacement agreement for Johnson's own withdrawal agreement, and might actually stir up discontent that exists within the backbenchers elsewhere, and cause it to coalesce around himself.
Now I don't say that there is a connection, it might be stretching credulity too far to think that the committee could have been prevailed upon to undermine Johnson's credibility right at the moment when he could become most troublesome to the now PM, but I just point out the coincidence. Make of it what you will.
(Boris for his part, claims there is "not a shred of evidence" that he misled parliament when he told them that no rules had been broken in Number 10. That would include the photos of you standing there, glass in hand with a group of undistanced people, bottles of wine and spirits on the table and takeaway containers would it? Or the sworn statement that has you saying at the event that it must be the most socially undistanced gathering in London at that moment? Or the one that worried that people might learn of a "piss up" at the PM's establishment, and that concerns about such a leak were (given the facts) not unwarranted?. No Boris - of course all of this evidence has you vindicated in your protestations of innocence. It's all a Labour plot to undermine you isn't it? The 127 fines that the metropolitan police dished out to people for misdemeanours at your premises, the fact that the Grey investigation and the metropolitan police investigation came independently to the same conclusion - all a Labour plot, isn't it? Nothing to see here!)
--------0--------
Glastonbury organisers are having to make excuses for there not being a female artist or band within the three recently named headline acts for this year, one for the culmination of each day of the festival.
They have been particularly inventive in their explanation, describing it as the result of a 'pipeline problem' with the availability of female artists at the time of the festival. Not, on reflection, perhaps the best of terms in which to describe the problem, but hey - it is what it is?
-------0-------
It will be interesting to see what the reaction in Scotland will be to the Stone of Scone (aka the Coronation Stone) being returned to Westminster for the King's coronation. From 1296 to 1996 the stone was held captive by the English, a source of much resentment in Scotland where the stone was the traditional seat upon which Scottish monarchs were crowned, and its return by the Blair government was the cause of much celebration.
Now ex SNP leader Alec Salmon has said that the stone should not be returned to London for the coronation, a condition upon which its return to Scotland was agreed when it was handed back.
In the UK, and in Scotland in particular, such seemingly archaic things can take on a cultural significance that belies their apparent simplicity. The mere returning of the stone can be seen as a tipping of the cap of the whole Scottish people to the English, and a return, even for so brief a time - a few days at most - could become an event around which Scottish nationalism could coalesce, just when there are signs that its popularity might be a little on the wane.
Salmond's call for a refusal to return the stone might go unnoticed - most probably will - but just possibly it could become a 'diplomatic incident', were it to catch the public imagination of the independently minded portion of the Scottish populace.
I'll watch this one with interest.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
peter
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 11538
- Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:08 am
- Location: Another time. Another place.
- Been thanked: 6 times
I'm going to have to admit that I may have gotten it wrong.
Like many others, I readily admit that I didn't believe that Rishi Sunak would be able to pull off his deal with the EU - that the DUP and ERG would never buy it, that Boris Johnson would be able to muster his supporters around a rebellion and the rest of it.
I've outlined some of the problems I think that the deal will have and I still believe that those problems will come to haunt it.....but..... despite all these, it does seem that he may have pulled off a blinder.
Sunak has clearly seen what an absolute disaster brexit has been, despite being one of the ones who foisted it upon us, but unlike Kier Stamer who is still intent on flogging the dead horse for what he thinks will be to his own political advantage (forget the country's interest - he cares nothing for that), Sunak, having seen the error of his ways has position himself such that he will in the coming months and years be able to bring about a rapprochement with our biggest trading partners, and gradually move toward a place from where we can once more do proper unhindered trade with them.
The EU from their part, have probably gotten tired with dealing with the dissembling and completely untrustworthy Johnson and can at last see a man with whom it might be business as usual, a more reasonable and normal kind of politician who will actually do what he says, with whom it is not necessary to count ones fingers after every occasion you have shaken him by the hand. They have responded in kind by allowing him a leeway that they could never have agreed to with Johnson, paving the way for Sunak to begin the process of repair. This in turn has rendered him the deal which, despite its problems, has put the DUP quiet, has seemingly satisfied the hard right of his parliamentary party, and may actually go some way towards sorting out the brexit trilemma.
And where has this left Stamer?
Stuck, hoisted on the patard of his own political opportunism, he is forced to stay with the obvious disaster of continual spouting of "Make brexit work", when everyone knows it cannot be done, wrong footed into backing the dead brexiteer vote that is shrivelling away by the day (because even the British people are not so stupid as to not be able to recognise the obvious) and watching Rishi Sunak scoop up the millions of people who will return to voting Tory, now that they can see a light at the end of the disastrous brexit tunnel, in terms of laying the groundwork for an eventual better trading relationship in the future. Stamer may, it is possible, win a term in office - but that will be it. Sunak just might, if he continues at last to keep on the track he has started, and introduce some realpolitik into the Tory thinking (because even the hard right cannot continue to deny the obvious for ever) just about convince sufficient of the electorate to forgive the Tories their catastrophic record of the last thirteen years and scrape enough votes to retain power after the next election.
Which would be a shame, because what the Tories have done, the carnage they have wreaked upon us, the burning skip that is our country as it stands, is, well, frankly unforgivable. They do not really deserve to even survive as a political force after this - but the Tories are not the most longstanding political party in Europe (the world?) for nothing. They have a capacity for reinvention; like the business world from which they sprang and which still sits at the core of their soul (however misguided it might often be), they adapt to circumstances, always ready to take the main chance.
And meanwhile Labour have once again gotten it wholly wrong. Stamer has led them into a cul-de-sac from which they will find it really difficult to back out (this side of a general election at least). He must be feeling sick to his stomach as the reality of what he has done sinks in, and in my opinion it couldn't happen to a nicer man. He has stabbed the one man who really could have effected some radical political change in this country in the back. Reneged on every promise he made to secure the leadership, and is now engaged in a purging from the prospective candidate list any and everybody who represents anything like what the party was originally formed to function as - a force in support of the working people. Good riddance to him. As things stand Sunak is more likely to get my vote than Stamer - and that is saying something!
We still have the problem that what Sunak is now acknowledging is good for the three percent of the UK people who live in Northern Ireland (ie membership of the single market and customs union) is being denied to the other 97 percent of us - but it may be that at least moves are afoot which will slowly begin to rectify our ridiculous mistake in this, and so much the better.
And my thanks to Michael Lambert on whose clear and reasonedYouTube post the above is based, for lifting the veil from my eyes, for bringing about this damascene conversion. Even I'm not that stupid when the chips are down.
-------0--------
And for those who might still doubt that the government used fear and behavioural nudging to increase public compliance with the Draconian restrictions placed upon them during the lockdown, today's front page of the Telegraph should be required reading.
Giving the text of numerous WhatsApp messages between the then Health Secretary Matt Hancock and various of the leading scientific advisors, Chief Scientific advisor to the government Sir Patrick Valance included, we are shown how the true situation was hidden, distorted, even completely misrepresented, in order to "frighten the pants off" the public, and thereby get them to accept things that they otherwise would not tolerate. Also related is how this fear so generated, bled into increased non-covid deaths and hugely increased levels of anxiety related illness within the population. Some psychologists advising government at the time even pointed out the grossly unethical nature of this type of fear manipulation, but to no interest of Hancock and his team who were only concerned that the fullest of restrictive lockdown measures be enforced in order to minimise virus transmission.
But if you read the remit of the forthcoming enquiry into the pandemic handling you will find nothing of this is to be considered. Neither will you find any consideration of the proportionality of the pandemic response in respect of the actual threat, weather the long term 'collateral' damage of the lockdown policy might not have far outstripped the actual savings achieved thereby. Whether other lesser restrictions, such as they fencing the old and vulnerable while allowing natural immunity levels within the minimally at risk portions of the population to increase, might not have yielded more effective results and been far less damaging to the economy and society as a whole...... These things it seems, are not to be looked at. And I'm guessing that the reason for this is that the truth might be just too hard to swallow. That we tore our country to pieces, destroyed our economy wellbeing for decades to come, imposed brutal and cruel restrictions on people that will torment them until the day they die, for nothing. Upon the back of a scientifically whipped up panic that our governments were either too scared, or had vested interest in not, treating with the caution with which it deserved.
Like many others, I readily admit that I didn't believe that Rishi Sunak would be able to pull off his deal with the EU - that the DUP and ERG would never buy it, that Boris Johnson would be able to muster his supporters around a rebellion and the rest of it.
I've outlined some of the problems I think that the deal will have and I still believe that those problems will come to haunt it.....but..... despite all these, it does seem that he may have pulled off a blinder.
Sunak has clearly seen what an absolute disaster brexit has been, despite being one of the ones who foisted it upon us, but unlike Kier Stamer who is still intent on flogging the dead horse for what he thinks will be to his own political advantage (forget the country's interest - he cares nothing for that), Sunak, having seen the error of his ways has position himself such that he will in the coming months and years be able to bring about a rapprochement with our biggest trading partners, and gradually move toward a place from where we can once more do proper unhindered trade with them.
The EU from their part, have probably gotten tired with dealing with the dissembling and completely untrustworthy Johnson and can at last see a man with whom it might be business as usual, a more reasonable and normal kind of politician who will actually do what he says, with whom it is not necessary to count ones fingers after every occasion you have shaken him by the hand. They have responded in kind by allowing him a leeway that they could never have agreed to with Johnson, paving the way for Sunak to begin the process of repair. This in turn has rendered him the deal which, despite its problems, has put the DUP quiet, has seemingly satisfied the hard right of his parliamentary party, and may actually go some way towards sorting out the brexit trilemma.
And where has this left Stamer?
Stuck, hoisted on the patard of his own political opportunism, he is forced to stay with the obvious disaster of continual spouting of "Make brexit work", when everyone knows it cannot be done, wrong footed into backing the dead brexiteer vote that is shrivelling away by the day (because even the British people are not so stupid as to not be able to recognise the obvious) and watching Rishi Sunak scoop up the millions of people who will return to voting Tory, now that they can see a light at the end of the disastrous brexit tunnel, in terms of laying the groundwork for an eventual better trading relationship in the future. Stamer may, it is possible, win a term in office - but that will be it. Sunak just might, if he continues at last to keep on the track he has started, and introduce some realpolitik into the Tory thinking (because even the hard right cannot continue to deny the obvious for ever) just about convince sufficient of the electorate to forgive the Tories their catastrophic record of the last thirteen years and scrape enough votes to retain power after the next election.
Which would be a shame, because what the Tories have done, the carnage they have wreaked upon us, the burning skip that is our country as it stands, is, well, frankly unforgivable. They do not really deserve to even survive as a political force after this - but the Tories are not the most longstanding political party in Europe (the world?) for nothing. They have a capacity for reinvention; like the business world from which they sprang and which still sits at the core of their soul (however misguided it might often be), they adapt to circumstances, always ready to take the main chance.
And meanwhile Labour have once again gotten it wholly wrong. Stamer has led them into a cul-de-sac from which they will find it really difficult to back out (this side of a general election at least). He must be feeling sick to his stomach as the reality of what he has done sinks in, and in my opinion it couldn't happen to a nicer man. He has stabbed the one man who really could have effected some radical political change in this country in the back. Reneged on every promise he made to secure the leadership, and is now engaged in a purging from the prospective candidate list any and everybody who represents anything like what the party was originally formed to function as - a force in support of the working people. Good riddance to him. As things stand Sunak is more likely to get my vote than Stamer - and that is saying something!
We still have the problem that what Sunak is now acknowledging is good for the three percent of the UK people who live in Northern Ireland (ie membership of the single market and customs union) is being denied to the other 97 percent of us - but it may be that at least moves are afoot which will slowly begin to rectify our ridiculous mistake in this, and so much the better.
And my thanks to Michael Lambert on whose clear and reasonedYouTube post the above is based, for lifting the veil from my eyes, for bringing about this damascene conversion. Even I'm not that stupid when the chips are down.
-------0--------
And for those who might still doubt that the government used fear and behavioural nudging to increase public compliance with the Draconian restrictions placed upon them during the lockdown, today's front page of the Telegraph should be required reading.
Giving the text of numerous WhatsApp messages between the then Health Secretary Matt Hancock and various of the leading scientific advisors, Chief Scientific advisor to the government Sir Patrick Valance included, we are shown how the true situation was hidden, distorted, even completely misrepresented, in order to "frighten the pants off" the public, and thereby get them to accept things that they otherwise would not tolerate. Also related is how this fear so generated, bled into increased non-covid deaths and hugely increased levels of anxiety related illness within the population. Some psychologists advising government at the time even pointed out the grossly unethical nature of this type of fear manipulation, but to no interest of Hancock and his team who were only concerned that the fullest of restrictive lockdown measures be enforced in order to minimise virus transmission.
But if you read the remit of the forthcoming enquiry into the pandemic handling you will find nothing of this is to be considered. Neither will you find any consideration of the proportionality of the pandemic response in respect of the actual threat, weather the long term 'collateral' damage of the lockdown policy might not have far outstripped the actual savings achieved thereby. Whether other lesser restrictions, such as they fencing the old and vulnerable while allowing natural immunity levels within the minimally at risk portions of the population to increase, might not have yielded more effective results and been far less damaging to the economy and society as a whole...... These things it seems, are not to be looked at. And I'm guessing that the reason for this is that the truth might be just too hard to swallow. That we tore our country to pieces, destroyed our economy wellbeing for decades to come, imposed brutal and cruel restrictions on people that will torment them until the day they die, for nothing. Upon the back of a scientifically whipped up panic that our governments were either too scared, or had vested interest in not, treating with the caution with which it deserved.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
peter
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 11538
- Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:08 am
- Location: Another time. Another place.
- Been thanked: 6 times
Headline in The Sun today is LVIV AID, a reference of course to the Bob Geldof inspired concert of 1985, held to raise funds to help toward easing the famine in Ethiopia.
Rather unwisely I'd have thought, the concert to be held at Wembley Stadium, has been scheduled for the same day as the Glastonbury festival weekend, Saturday 24 June, and invitations have been sent out to the great and good of the rock world asking them to contribute their talents toward the event.
I'm not sure who's brain child this is, and I'm wondering how Bono, the Stones, Paul McCartney and the like (ie the usual dull old acts who are wheeled out - some of them nearly literally - for these events) will look at this thing.
It's one thing to hold charitable events in support of raising aid towards victims of natural disasters - quite another to do so in support of the victims of one particular side in a war (let alone the problem of how you prevent money intended for the victims from finding its way into actually supporting the conflict itself). There are ethical considerations here that do not present themselves in the normal case of such charitable events. This will certainly be recognised by the people who might ordinarily buy tickets for such concerts, if not by the performers themselves. It goes without saying that on the day, in the excitement of the event, it will be very easy for the rhetoric pouring from the stage (and no doubt interspersed at regular intervals in any television coverage of the event) to slip into an anti-Russian tone, rather than confining itself to the people whose lives have been devastated by the events of this catastrophic war. And even if the former is avoided, how do you separate one set of victims from the other. Do the Russian victims of the conflict, the shattered areas of the Donbas and Luhansk, not count? Russian soldiers conscripted into Putin's army (as are Ukrainian men into Zelensky's) to be sent to the front, to have limbs shattered, bodies mangled by the devilish inventiveness of man when it comes to killing his fellow man. Soldiers and civilians alike are victims of wars - how do you separate them out?
There is also a real risk of a concert like this turning into an ugly spectacle of propaganda. We only have to look back at the use of mass rallies by the nazis to see how this can be done and already the notion that this concert can be used to put pressure on Vladimir Putin has been broached; a huge world wide projection of anti-Russian protestations sent into the homes of three quarters of the world's population. Hmmm......do I really want to be a part of this?
So no. I'm not in favour of this idea and I believe it would be better to organise concerts sending an anti-war message to the leaders of our world, both the ones who start such conflicts (and that would be Putin) and those who continue them and facilitate their continuance. I'd have an alternative free festival on the same day, featuring some of the real young independent talent in this country (go check out 'Hi Ren' as posted by Ren on YouTube) held in Hyde Park, Peace in the Park say, in which the case against the war - all wars - could be iterated and supported, rather than following the propoganda led orchestrations of the professional disaster capitalists who will no doubt be behind this one.
But that's just me.
---------0---------
James Dyson, vacuum cleaner impresario extraordinaire, has sent out a message to the government warning them against tax rises in the near future. Well I can see that with an estimated fortune in the region of seven and a half billion dollars Dyson would need to worry about being made to pay tax at an equitable level with the poor clowns he used the employ in his factories.
That would be before he told us that we would be better outside the EU and then promptly, once the vote was in, moved his business operations to the Far East where labour costs area fraction of what they are here and you don't have to worry about all those pesky employment laws.
So given this, I'm not sure we need to take any notice of what James Dyson says we should or should not be doing; I think he's used up his UK brownie points a long time ago. The best thing he can be doing is concentrating on making a half decent vacuum cleaner, that's if he can drag himself away from counting the piles of gold in his personal vaults for a moment.
--------0---------
MPs and peers are warning the government that their intended anti-strike legislation is in contravention of human rights rules as laid out under article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Errr.......
Sorry guys, but do you think they give a fuck? Have you been running around with your heads up your arses for the last ten years while this lot has been doing their Conservative thing?
Just sit down and watch the blackboard while I run through it.......
Rather unwisely I'd have thought, the concert to be held at Wembley Stadium, has been scheduled for the same day as the Glastonbury festival weekend, Saturday 24 June, and invitations have been sent out to the great and good of the rock world asking them to contribute their talents toward the event.
I'm not sure who's brain child this is, and I'm wondering how Bono, the Stones, Paul McCartney and the like (ie the usual dull old acts who are wheeled out - some of them nearly literally - for these events) will look at this thing.
It's one thing to hold charitable events in support of raising aid towards victims of natural disasters - quite another to do so in support of the victims of one particular side in a war (let alone the problem of how you prevent money intended for the victims from finding its way into actually supporting the conflict itself). There are ethical considerations here that do not present themselves in the normal case of such charitable events. This will certainly be recognised by the people who might ordinarily buy tickets for such concerts, if not by the performers themselves. It goes without saying that on the day, in the excitement of the event, it will be very easy for the rhetoric pouring from the stage (and no doubt interspersed at regular intervals in any television coverage of the event) to slip into an anti-Russian tone, rather than confining itself to the people whose lives have been devastated by the events of this catastrophic war. And even if the former is avoided, how do you separate one set of victims from the other. Do the Russian victims of the conflict, the shattered areas of the Donbas and Luhansk, not count? Russian soldiers conscripted into Putin's army (as are Ukrainian men into Zelensky's) to be sent to the front, to have limbs shattered, bodies mangled by the devilish inventiveness of man when it comes to killing his fellow man. Soldiers and civilians alike are victims of wars - how do you separate them out?
There is also a real risk of a concert like this turning into an ugly spectacle of propaganda. We only have to look back at the use of mass rallies by the nazis to see how this can be done and already the notion that this concert can be used to put pressure on Vladimir Putin has been broached; a huge world wide projection of anti-Russian protestations sent into the homes of three quarters of the world's population. Hmmm......do I really want to be a part of this?
So no. I'm not in favour of this idea and I believe it would be better to organise concerts sending an anti-war message to the leaders of our world, both the ones who start such conflicts (and that would be Putin) and those who continue them and facilitate their continuance. I'd have an alternative free festival on the same day, featuring some of the real young independent talent in this country (go check out 'Hi Ren' as posted by Ren on YouTube) held in Hyde Park, Peace in the Park say, in which the case against the war - all wars - could be iterated and supported, rather than following the propoganda led orchestrations of the professional disaster capitalists who will no doubt be behind this one.
But that's just me.
---------0---------
James Dyson, vacuum cleaner impresario extraordinaire, has sent out a message to the government warning them against tax rises in the near future. Well I can see that with an estimated fortune in the region of seven and a half billion dollars Dyson would need to worry about being made to pay tax at an equitable level with the poor clowns he used the employ in his factories.
That would be before he told us that we would be better outside the EU and then promptly, once the vote was in, moved his business operations to the Far East where labour costs area fraction of what they are here and you don't have to worry about all those pesky employment laws.
So given this, I'm not sure we need to take any notice of what James Dyson says we should or should not be doing; I think he's used up his UK brownie points a long time ago. The best thing he can be doing is concentrating on making a half decent vacuum cleaner, that's if he can drag himself away from counting the piles of gold in his personal vaults for a moment.
--------0---------
MPs and peers are warning the government that their intended anti-strike legislation is in contravention of human rights rules as laid out under article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Errr.......
Sorry guys, but do you think they give a fuck? Have you been running around with your heads up your arses for the last ten years while this lot has been doing their Conservative thing?
Just sit down and watch the blackboard while I run through it.......
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
peter
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 11538
- Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:08 am
- Location: Another time. Another place.
- Been thanked: 6 times
Today I could write on the stupidity of Rishi Sunak's crowing about how he is going to make ("From today!" the Sun shouts at us) all migrants entering the UK illegally, ineligible to apply for asylum from that moment and henceforth. On the back of these draconian new laws, they will be shipped with virtual immediate effect off to Rwanda - or some other 'safe' country (like Lear, he knows not where) - without a by-your-leave.
That this will inevitably result in tragedies whereby people absolutely deserving of asylum are thrown out of the country like so much trash, simply because they have taken recourse to the only method of getting to this country available to them (even Home Secretary Braverman was unable to say how to a House of Commons investigation committee how a "16 year old from Nigeria, fleeing persecution" could legally come to this country, Nigeria not being on the list of countries from which asylum seekers would be accepted) is inevitable. But this obvious fact seems not to bother Sunak, Braverman or indeed the huge proportion of the printed press in the UK, who this morning are in the main shouting from the rafters in jeering support for this measure.
These are desperate people fer fucks sake! They don't trek across Europe in conditions of uncertain safety, sit in migrant camps in squalor and misery and climb into these deathtrap boats for no reason! But let's look at the headlines;
The Sun. "No Entry! Small boat migrants banned from today. "
The Express. "Suella...Back laws to stop boats or betray Britain!" (A particularly dangerous type of headline of the 'Traitors' type, formally leveled at judges when they forced a vote on an issue with Brexit, and presaging as it does, a shift towards the populist cum fascist trick of utilising populist sentiment to bypass or undermine the legal process.)
The Telegraph. "Braverman vows to stop the boats with laws challenging European judges on migrants." (Red meat for the higer end brexiteer market, as represented by the Telegraph readership and who will lap this stuff up.)
The Times. "PM plans annual cap on numbers of refugees; ministers brace for legal battle over bill."
Daily Mail. "We will push human rights laws to the limit! Minister's say they won't break, but will stretch boundaries of international law in crackdown on Chanel migrants."
I mean, this is classic moral panic creation stuff. Straight out of the dead cat textbook for diverting attention from what a fuck up of everything you have made, and playing to the basest of tendencies in people, using a popular narrative of 'the enemy without' who must be resisted and treated with contempt, cruelty and inhuman disregard for his sufferings. I mean - what kind of a country have we become? What the fuck has happened to us? This is not how we used to be! We used to care!
But this isn't what I want to say today......
I want (skipping over the ridiculous issue of Boris Johnson giving his own father a knighthood in his department from office honours list - as if we needed any reminder of how nepotistic and corrupt our system is....the receipt of an honour these days is either a box-ticking exercise for a particular identity group presence or an outright payback for services rendered - like Groucho Marx's comment about not wanting to be in any club that would have me as a member, there's more honour today in refusing an honour than taking one....)....I want rather to return ever so briefly to the business of the euthanasia of all domestic cats in the UK, as was apparently briefly considered at the beginning of the pandemic.
Because yes, we look at a story such as this and think how ridiculous - it cannot possibly be true, and yes, we then remember what was done to us that we also never would have believed would have been possible - how seamlessly it was done without a single vote being cast.
And then I ask you to reflect on this. That while for you and me, the pandemic was an occurence that impacted our lives, but didn't shred them, didn't pull them apart......for some people - in fact tens of thousands who felt the full force of the restrictions in a place where it did really bite - in a carpark outside a hospital screaming to see a dying spouse, unable to hold the hand of a dying relative, even child, - for these people the crushing power of the state was absolutely made manifest and to devastating and life changing effect.
For these people I say, any kind of inquiry that does not highlight what was done to them, does not recognise the price they paid and respect that by including a consideration of whether what we did was right..... Any inquiry that does not consider this question is an insult to those people and not worth the paper it is printed upon.
(Postscript; I mean this most sincerely. This 'othering' of migrants crossing the Chanel is no different to what the nazis did in respect of the Jews prior to the Second World War. And no less dangerous. If I were not such an insignificant and pathetic speck of humanity I'd be out there standing for office, or shouting it from the rafters from some prominent place where it would be heard by all who passed by. But that is beyond me. It is not within my capabilities. So instead I post here, send out these missives like messages of despair in a bottle, in the hope that at least someone will notice them. And if one single person reads them and is changed, is brought round to thinking, to seeing what is happening, then it will have been worthwhile. This is the best I can do.)
That this will inevitably result in tragedies whereby people absolutely deserving of asylum are thrown out of the country like so much trash, simply because they have taken recourse to the only method of getting to this country available to them (even Home Secretary Braverman was unable to say how to a House of Commons investigation committee how a "16 year old from Nigeria, fleeing persecution" could legally come to this country, Nigeria not being on the list of countries from which asylum seekers would be accepted) is inevitable. But this obvious fact seems not to bother Sunak, Braverman or indeed the huge proportion of the printed press in the UK, who this morning are in the main shouting from the rafters in jeering support for this measure.
These are desperate people fer fucks sake! They don't trek across Europe in conditions of uncertain safety, sit in migrant camps in squalor and misery and climb into these deathtrap boats for no reason! But let's look at the headlines;
The Sun. "No Entry! Small boat migrants banned from today. "
The Express. "Suella...Back laws to stop boats or betray Britain!" (A particularly dangerous type of headline of the 'Traitors' type, formally leveled at judges when they forced a vote on an issue with Brexit, and presaging as it does, a shift towards the populist cum fascist trick of utilising populist sentiment to bypass or undermine the legal process.)
The Telegraph. "Braverman vows to stop the boats with laws challenging European judges on migrants." (Red meat for the higer end brexiteer market, as represented by the Telegraph readership and who will lap this stuff up.)
The Times. "PM plans annual cap on numbers of refugees; ministers brace for legal battle over bill."
Daily Mail. "We will push human rights laws to the limit! Minister's say they won't break, but will stretch boundaries of international law in crackdown on Chanel migrants."
I mean, this is classic moral panic creation stuff. Straight out of the dead cat textbook for diverting attention from what a fuck up of everything you have made, and playing to the basest of tendencies in people, using a popular narrative of 'the enemy without' who must be resisted and treated with contempt, cruelty and inhuman disregard for his sufferings. I mean - what kind of a country have we become? What the fuck has happened to us? This is not how we used to be! We used to care!
But this isn't what I want to say today......
I want (skipping over the ridiculous issue of Boris Johnson giving his own father a knighthood in his department from office honours list - as if we needed any reminder of how nepotistic and corrupt our system is....the receipt of an honour these days is either a box-ticking exercise for a particular identity group presence or an outright payback for services rendered - like Groucho Marx's comment about not wanting to be in any club that would have me as a member, there's more honour today in refusing an honour than taking one....)....I want rather to return ever so briefly to the business of the euthanasia of all domestic cats in the UK, as was apparently briefly considered at the beginning of the pandemic.
Because yes, we look at a story such as this and think how ridiculous - it cannot possibly be true, and yes, we then remember what was done to us that we also never would have believed would have been possible - how seamlessly it was done without a single vote being cast.
And then I ask you to reflect on this. That while for you and me, the pandemic was an occurence that impacted our lives, but didn't shred them, didn't pull them apart......for some people - in fact tens of thousands who felt the full force of the restrictions in a place where it did really bite - in a carpark outside a hospital screaming to see a dying spouse, unable to hold the hand of a dying relative, even child, - for these people the crushing power of the state was absolutely made manifest and to devastating and life changing effect.
For these people I say, any kind of inquiry that does not highlight what was done to them, does not recognise the price they paid and respect that by including a consideration of whether what we did was right..... Any inquiry that does not consider this question is an insult to those people and not worth the paper it is printed upon.
(Postscript; I mean this most sincerely. This 'othering' of migrants crossing the Chanel is no different to what the nazis did in respect of the Jews prior to the Second World War. And no less dangerous. If I were not such an insignificant and pathetic speck of humanity I'd be out there standing for office, or shouting it from the rafters from some prominent place where it would be heard by all who passed by. But that is beyond me. It is not within my capabilities. So instead I post here, send out these missives like messages of despair in a bottle, in the hope that at least someone will notice them. And if one single person reads them and is changed, is brought round to thinking, to seeing what is happening, then it will have been worthwhile. This is the best I can do.)
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
peter
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 11538
- Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:08 am
- Location: Another time. Another place.
- Been thanked: 6 times
As a follow up to the post I made earlier, and the comments I made regarding Rishi Sunak's new laws pertaining to the small boats, I was interested to hear James O'brien picking up on the same theme on his morning phone in.
He even went so far as to quote the same headlines as I did, but seemed unable to make the jump into stating that this was deliberate stiring of hatred against asylum seekers by the government aided by their friends in the media, done with the express purpose of deflecting attention from the burning skip to which this country has been reduced under their tenureship. Instead he rather pretended to be confused as to the government's plan, asking his listeners to phone in and tell him what the hell was going on.
He rightly outlined that the small boats problem was entirely of the government's making, their having torn up the Dublin Agreement (under which illegal emigrants could be returned to the country they last set foot in) as part of the Johnson withdrawal agreement from the EU, but without making any alternative arrangement. He also recalled the fact that various legal routes for migration this country had been closed off in recent years, making the illegal cross Chanel route the only alternative left for many asylum seekers - but he rather put this down to government lack of foresight than perhaps deliberate policy. Where he was less prepared to nail his colours to the master was to explicitly state that the moral panic being whipped up by the media was a deliberate attempt to feed red meat to Tory voters who may be wavering as a result of the government failures in respect of the economy, the NHS, brexit results - you name it, the list goes on - and as a dead cat diversionary tactic in respect of the same.
Fortunately his callers were less inclined to give the government the benefit of the doubt. To a man, they said that this was a diversionary tactic, deliberately and cynically being followed by a government desperate to deflect attention from its manifest failings. The last woman who phoned in made the virtually exact parallels that I did in respect of the danger of this kind of hate mongering, saying it was a despicable and incendiary ploy that had parallels only with the worst of regimes current and historical in Europe. Interestingly one caller cited a recent You Gov poll in which fifty percent of the people questioned said that they agreed with the idea of new legislation that would make it impossible for any person found entering the country illegally to then apply for asylum status or return to the country post deportation. The man said that he found this result profoundly depressing and so indeed do I. As I said above, this was not formerly who we were. (Nb. I'd bet a pound to a penny that that would have been the same fifty percent of the people who voted Brexit in the referendum.)
Any way, this is just a follow-up and I post it to show that I'm not entirely out on a limb in my thinking that government in this country is heading in a direction that should be a concern to all of us. Suella Braverman gave a statement in the House earlier which basically outlined the policy and legislation that will be required to enact it. The Labour response given by Yvette Cooper was predictably lame; certainly she called out the policy as being most likely to be illegal, ineffectual and unworkable, but insisted on concentrating on the problem of the legislation in terms of solving the small boats issue and not once haranguing the Home Secretary on the use of divisive hate politics to further the achievement of political ends. Do the Labour Party not acknowledge that this is what they are doing? Are they too afraid to call as spade a spade? Now is neither the time for cowardice nor for underestimating the depths to which the mortally wounded government will sink in order to give themselves a final shot. O'brien seemed reluctant to see Sunak as cast in the same mold as the more radical right of the party, but I think he is mistaken. Sunak is smoother, less abrasive, but with Braverman sat next to him he doesn't need to show his true colours. She will do it all for him so that nice Rishi will be preserved.
But to end at least on one positive note, in response to James O'brien's querying his optimism (re the boats policy) one participant said that he was optimistic because this tactic (the one I refer to) was indicative of a government that had nothing left. Once this ever so obvious ruse was rumbled, once even the most ardent brexiteering Conservative could see through this veneer, he said, they had nothing left. Pray that he is correct. If Braverman gets another term then it might be time to start being very afraid.
He even went so far as to quote the same headlines as I did, but seemed unable to make the jump into stating that this was deliberate stiring of hatred against asylum seekers by the government aided by their friends in the media, done with the express purpose of deflecting attention from the burning skip to which this country has been reduced under their tenureship. Instead he rather pretended to be confused as to the government's plan, asking his listeners to phone in and tell him what the hell was going on.
He rightly outlined that the small boats problem was entirely of the government's making, their having torn up the Dublin Agreement (under which illegal emigrants could be returned to the country they last set foot in) as part of the Johnson withdrawal agreement from the EU, but without making any alternative arrangement. He also recalled the fact that various legal routes for migration this country had been closed off in recent years, making the illegal cross Chanel route the only alternative left for many asylum seekers - but he rather put this down to government lack of foresight than perhaps deliberate policy. Where he was less prepared to nail his colours to the master was to explicitly state that the moral panic being whipped up by the media was a deliberate attempt to feed red meat to Tory voters who may be wavering as a result of the government failures in respect of the economy, the NHS, brexit results - you name it, the list goes on - and as a dead cat diversionary tactic in respect of the same.
Fortunately his callers were less inclined to give the government the benefit of the doubt. To a man, they said that this was a diversionary tactic, deliberately and cynically being followed by a government desperate to deflect attention from its manifest failings. The last woman who phoned in made the virtually exact parallels that I did in respect of the danger of this kind of hate mongering, saying it was a despicable and incendiary ploy that had parallels only with the worst of regimes current and historical in Europe. Interestingly one caller cited a recent You Gov poll in which fifty percent of the people questioned said that they agreed with the idea of new legislation that would make it impossible for any person found entering the country illegally to then apply for asylum status or return to the country post deportation. The man said that he found this result profoundly depressing and so indeed do I. As I said above, this was not formerly who we were. (Nb. I'd bet a pound to a penny that that would have been the same fifty percent of the people who voted Brexit in the referendum.)
Any way, this is just a follow-up and I post it to show that I'm not entirely out on a limb in my thinking that government in this country is heading in a direction that should be a concern to all of us. Suella Braverman gave a statement in the House earlier which basically outlined the policy and legislation that will be required to enact it. The Labour response given by Yvette Cooper was predictably lame; certainly she called out the policy as being most likely to be illegal, ineffectual and unworkable, but insisted on concentrating on the problem of the legislation in terms of solving the small boats issue and not once haranguing the Home Secretary on the use of divisive hate politics to further the achievement of political ends. Do the Labour Party not acknowledge that this is what they are doing? Are they too afraid to call as spade a spade? Now is neither the time for cowardice nor for underestimating the depths to which the mortally wounded government will sink in order to give themselves a final shot. O'brien seemed reluctant to see Sunak as cast in the same mold as the more radical right of the party, but I think he is mistaken. Sunak is smoother, less abrasive, but with Braverman sat next to him he doesn't need to show his true colours. She will do it all for him so that nice Rishi will be preserved.
But to end at least on one positive note, in response to James O'brien's querying his optimism (re the boats policy) one participant said that he was optimistic because this tactic (the one I refer to) was indicative of a government that had nothing left. Once this ever so obvious ruse was rumbled, once even the most ardent brexiteering Conservative could see through this veneer, he said, they had nothing left. Pray that he is correct. If Braverman gets another term then it might be time to start being very afraid.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
peter
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 11538
- Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:08 am
- Location: Another time. Another place.
- Been thanked: 6 times
More power to Gary Lineker for his comments in respect of the Sunak inspired immigration policy and the language in which it was disseminated to the country.
Responding to criticism from the likes of '30p Lee' Anderson and other Tory spokesmen, the ex footballer turned commentator had this to say.
The BBC in typical spineless form have said that the commentator would be "reminded of his responsibilities."
I put it to the BBC that Lineker's responsibilities as human being to his fellow men and women outweigh those to his employer whose capitulation and toadying to this vile administration has brought shame upon an organisation that previously enjoyed respect and affection the world over.
I read that the laws pertaining to this inhuman treatment of desperate people cannot be implemented until they receive royal assent. I consider it an insult to our King to ask him to assent to such laws and thoroughly recommend that he decline to do so. No better show of disapproval for the direction of travel of this odious administration could be given and I for one would be more than happy to see such a constitutional impropriety commited in the cause of simple and honest humanity.
----------0-----------
What is it that the UK Tory government has got against human rights?
The European Convention on Human Rights was possibly Churchill's greatest political achievement, yet our administration seems determined to see us out of it at all costs.
It should be noted that of all countries in Europe, only Russia and Belarus are outside - neither countries being recognised as havens of justice, yet Sunak and Braverman seem determined that we should join them beyond the reach of international agreement (and more significantly, law) on what can and cannot be done to our fellow men.
Of course, being tied up in legislation about how people must be, at base level, treated can be tiresome, especially if you want to follow a path where the pursuit of profit and success of business may lead you into areas where the direction of the line on the graph may be effected by such things as maximum working hours and minimum pay levels etc. But by and large most people would recognise that there should be some minimum level of what is permissible to subject people to, and that this should be reinforced by an internationally agreed framework of laws.
But that recognition does not, it seems, extend to our current government (I keep wanting to call it a regime, because that is in essence what it has become) in their post-brexit race to the bottom. That would be the one we were assured would never happen by the Leave campaign.
Such has become my sickness with the country of my birth that, were I a younger man, beyond question I'd be looking for an alternative place of abode - a place where the type of things we are witnessing here, the rot that seems to go to the very heart of our nation, into the very people themselves, do not happen. Such was the decision of one caller to James O'Brien yesterday who, like me, was sick to his stomach with what we have become.
Unfortunately, with brexit under our belts, we are no longer able to do this with any degree of ease. That's another one we can chalk up to Johnson, Sunak and Braverman. Nigel Farage, Nick Griffin and Aron Banks (people who the current manifestation of the Tory government seem adamant to model themselves upon, presumably feeling that this is the direction of travel of the core vote that they are after).
And so it goes on - this ratcheting crawl to the right in which government, then people, then government etc, drag themselves into the mire of ever extremist thinking, and then policy making to reflect this.....
And we all know where it goes, and it ain't anywhere good.
------------0------------
Thought for the day.
You are not a human being having the experience of being in the Universe. You are the Universe having an experience of being a human being.
Responding to criticism from the likes of '30p Lee' Anderson and other Tory spokesmen, the ex footballer turned commentator had this to say.
(Lineker had been criticized by another tweeter as being "out of order".)Good heavens - this is beyond awful! (...) We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 1930s - and I'm the one who is out of order?
The BBC in typical spineless form have said that the commentator would be "reminded of his responsibilities."
I put it to the BBC that Lineker's responsibilities as human being to his fellow men and women outweigh those to his employer whose capitulation and toadying to this vile administration has brought shame upon an organisation that previously enjoyed respect and affection the world over.
I read that the laws pertaining to this inhuman treatment of desperate people cannot be implemented until they receive royal assent. I consider it an insult to our King to ask him to assent to such laws and thoroughly recommend that he decline to do so. No better show of disapproval for the direction of travel of this odious administration could be given and I for one would be more than happy to see such a constitutional impropriety commited in the cause of simple and honest humanity.
----------0-----------
What is it that the UK Tory government has got against human rights?
The European Convention on Human Rights was possibly Churchill's greatest political achievement, yet our administration seems determined to see us out of it at all costs.
It should be noted that of all countries in Europe, only Russia and Belarus are outside - neither countries being recognised as havens of justice, yet Sunak and Braverman seem determined that we should join them beyond the reach of international agreement (and more significantly, law) on what can and cannot be done to our fellow men.
Of course, being tied up in legislation about how people must be, at base level, treated can be tiresome, especially if you want to follow a path where the pursuit of profit and success of business may lead you into areas where the direction of the line on the graph may be effected by such things as maximum working hours and minimum pay levels etc. But by and large most people would recognise that there should be some minimum level of what is permissible to subject people to, and that this should be reinforced by an internationally agreed framework of laws.
But that recognition does not, it seems, extend to our current government (I keep wanting to call it a regime, because that is in essence what it has become) in their post-brexit race to the bottom. That would be the one we were assured would never happen by the Leave campaign.
Such has become my sickness with the country of my birth that, were I a younger man, beyond question I'd be looking for an alternative place of abode - a place where the type of things we are witnessing here, the rot that seems to go to the very heart of our nation, into the very people themselves, do not happen. Such was the decision of one caller to James O'Brien yesterday who, like me, was sick to his stomach with what we have become.
Unfortunately, with brexit under our belts, we are no longer able to do this with any degree of ease. That's another one we can chalk up to Johnson, Sunak and Braverman. Nigel Farage, Nick Griffin and Aron Banks (people who the current manifestation of the Tory government seem adamant to model themselves upon, presumably feeling that this is the direction of travel of the core vote that they are after).
And so it goes on - this ratcheting crawl to the right in which government, then people, then government etc, drag themselves into the mire of ever extremist thinking, and then policy making to reflect this.....
And we all know where it goes, and it ain't anywhere good.
------------0------------
Thought for the day.
You are not a human being having the experience of being in the Universe. You are the Universe having an experience of being a human being.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
peter
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 11538
- Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:08 am
- Location: Another time. Another place.
- Been thanked: 6 times
There are three stories on the front of today's Times - and every one of them gets my pip!
Firstly at the top of the page is the announcement that "Tories plan to speed up deportations by dragging heels in court."
The piece then goes on to tell us how the government intends to use a strategy of delay and prevarication to thwart any attempts by the European Court to interfere with the new legislation for dealing with the small boats crisis.
Forgive me for pointing it out - but isn't prevarication just (in effect) another word for lying? Certainly it's a softer version, an avoidance of telling the truth, an obfuscation or refusal to clearly say what you mean, but it amounts to the same thing. In fairness,it would be no more than the European Court, or any other European body would expect when dealing with an administration from this government. After all, every dealing that they have had with them to date has been plagued with exactly the same kind of tactic - a shimmying around the truth, a promise half made with fingers crossed behind backs, a sudden reversal of meaning or failure to 'understand' what has been agreed. This has become the byword for any dealings with the UK administration and I see no reason to expect that they would think it would be otherwise now.
It seems that the phrase 'The perfidious Albion', refering to our notorious untrustworthiness and duplicity in diplomatic negotiations down through the centuries is in no danger of loosing its appositeness with the current administration. If anything they are buffing it up to a new level of meaning.
(As an aside, there is a very real chance that it is the British people that are the intended suckers in all of this. It makes for great sounding rhetoric for the anti immigrant voting base of the Tories, but in actual fact, as no deportations are in truth being made, it's all smoke and mirrors. Because let's face it - there isn't really anywhere to send any of these people. Rwanda can take a few hundred tops, and that is proving near impossible - and where else is there? So in reality it's all bullshit to make it look like this government has a handle on the small boats, when in fact it has no clue what to do, other than go to the French and give them wheelbarrows full of cash to stop a few of the boats from leaving port. This is exactly what Sunak will do today, and then present it in the media as "Sunak triumphs in reaching agreement with French to solve small boats problem!" It's all totally predictable.
-----------0--------
Story number two comes under the headline "Weight loss drugs could help trim benefits bill."
There is so much packed into that little morsel that I hardly know where to begin.
It all comes from the fact that the supply of labour in the UK has been knocked to shit by brexit, and that a huge number of people are absent on a long term basis from the workforce as a result of long term health problems. The problem has increased significantly since the pandemic with a cost of around four billion pounds in additional benefits being paid out annually since that time. Chancellor Hunt is said to be very concerned with this situation and is actively searching for a way or ways, to get the long term sick back into work. A key part of this is to deal with the obesity epidemic that places so many demands on the health service, and in addition keeps people so afflicted from going out to work.
This would not be the place to say that the government having engaged in two years of fear propoganda pertaining to people's health, have no reason to be surprised that now a huge number of the population spend half their time obsessing over their health, and that fear, so generated, is now proving difficult to shift and indeed, coming back to haunt them in the long term sickness figures they are seeing...... but I'll say it anyway.
Or perhaps that those jabs they insisted we all take on a twice yearly basis were perhaps not as safe as they assumed them to be, or assured all of us that they were, having pushed them through the trials process at record speed in order to get them onto the market and into people's arms...... And that what we are seeing in the figures now is a result of what happens when you treat an entire country like a frikkin' great test-tube full of lab rats.......
Or that maybe that he long-covid is exactly what they told us it was - a debilitating long term hangover from the bug which would, yes, keep people out of the workforce for an extended period..... Or that maybe if you spend a couple of years ramming it into people that they will possibly spend an extended period in a state of sickness that the simple psychological impact of this is that a lot of them get psychosomatic conditions such that they spend a lot time incapacitated from being able to rejoin the workforce......
No. Now is not the time for a consideration of any of this stuff. It's not like any of us predicted that this kind of thing could happen.
Rather now, we should consider the ethics of giving millions of people (for so we are told, it could be wheeled out, like statins and hypertension drugs before it) injections of new (and again relatively untested) compounds in order to mask conditions that are essentially psychological in nature. (As an aside, it's funny isn't it, that it is always the drug companies - massive global corporations with the power to influence governments and make huge political donations, that are the beneficiaries in financial terms, of such policies?) Surely something like obsessive eating disorders should be treated via counselling, via getting to the root cause of why the person is doing this? And unless it can be demonstrated that they have some endocrine dysfunction that is resulting in their continual feelings of hunger, then their therapy should involve counselling and self-esteem (or whatever) improvement sessions, rather than simply reaching for the effective chemical cosh of an appetite suppressant injection?
Call me old fashioned, but it seems to me that these problems are things that people must work through individually with the help of their doctors and in self help groups, rather than via the state mandating for the use of this drug or that, for the mass alteration of millions of people in terms of their behaviour.
This, after all, is quite possibly half of the reason that we are here in the first place.
-------------0---------
Third headline that got under my skin: "Lab delivers motherless mice with two fathers."
I mean, why would you do that?
We are told that it might be of significance to the treatment of infertility in women (can't really see how, but..) and also it might allow for gay male couples to have a child where both men have a genetic investment in the child produced.
Well okay. This seems like a reasonable thing, but isn't there a point beyond which science should not go in pursuit of pushing the boundaries of what can be done? It isn't that I would deny gay men the right to have a child, but aren't there sufficient unwanted children on the earth that tinkering with the natural way of producing a child in order to grant them the joy of parenthood becomes unnecessary? To love a child that is not of your own genetic makeup is entirely possible - I know, I have done it. I have absolutely no doubt that those gay couples that have made the considered decision to adopt a child who otherwise might well be denied the benefit of growing up in the presence of loving parents, would not change that child for the world, and would argue with vehemence that their love was any the less profound, because of the absence of a shared genetic heritage with their child.
Certainly with this research, we are back into the old chestnut of whether, just because you can do a thing, you should do it - and in my opinion this is one of the places you should draw a line and say probably better not.
Firstly at the top of the page is the announcement that "Tories plan to speed up deportations by dragging heels in court."
The piece then goes on to tell us how the government intends to use a strategy of delay and prevarication to thwart any attempts by the European Court to interfere with the new legislation for dealing with the small boats crisis.
Forgive me for pointing it out - but isn't prevarication just (in effect) another word for lying? Certainly it's a softer version, an avoidance of telling the truth, an obfuscation or refusal to clearly say what you mean, but it amounts to the same thing. In fairness,it would be no more than the European Court, or any other European body would expect when dealing with an administration from this government. After all, every dealing that they have had with them to date has been plagued with exactly the same kind of tactic - a shimmying around the truth, a promise half made with fingers crossed behind backs, a sudden reversal of meaning or failure to 'understand' what has been agreed. This has become the byword for any dealings with the UK administration and I see no reason to expect that they would think it would be otherwise now.
It seems that the phrase 'The perfidious Albion', refering to our notorious untrustworthiness and duplicity in diplomatic negotiations down through the centuries is in no danger of loosing its appositeness with the current administration. If anything they are buffing it up to a new level of meaning.
(As an aside, there is a very real chance that it is the British people that are the intended suckers in all of this. It makes for great sounding rhetoric for the anti immigrant voting base of the Tories, but in actual fact, as no deportations are in truth being made, it's all smoke and mirrors. Because let's face it - there isn't really anywhere to send any of these people. Rwanda can take a few hundred tops, and that is proving near impossible - and where else is there? So in reality it's all bullshit to make it look like this government has a handle on the small boats, when in fact it has no clue what to do, other than go to the French and give them wheelbarrows full of cash to stop a few of the boats from leaving port. This is exactly what Sunak will do today, and then present it in the media as "Sunak triumphs in reaching agreement with French to solve small boats problem!" It's all totally predictable.
-----------0--------
Story number two comes under the headline "Weight loss drugs could help trim benefits bill."
There is so much packed into that little morsel that I hardly know where to begin.
It all comes from the fact that the supply of labour in the UK has been knocked to shit by brexit, and that a huge number of people are absent on a long term basis from the workforce as a result of long term health problems. The problem has increased significantly since the pandemic with a cost of around four billion pounds in additional benefits being paid out annually since that time. Chancellor Hunt is said to be very concerned with this situation and is actively searching for a way or ways, to get the long term sick back into work. A key part of this is to deal with the obesity epidemic that places so many demands on the health service, and in addition keeps people so afflicted from going out to work.
This would not be the place to say that the government having engaged in two years of fear propoganda pertaining to people's health, have no reason to be surprised that now a huge number of the population spend half their time obsessing over their health, and that fear, so generated, is now proving difficult to shift and indeed, coming back to haunt them in the long term sickness figures they are seeing...... but I'll say it anyway.
Or perhaps that those jabs they insisted we all take on a twice yearly basis were perhaps not as safe as they assumed them to be, or assured all of us that they were, having pushed them through the trials process at record speed in order to get them onto the market and into people's arms...... And that what we are seeing in the figures now is a result of what happens when you treat an entire country like a frikkin' great test-tube full of lab rats.......
Or that maybe that he long-covid is exactly what they told us it was - a debilitating long term hangover from the bug which would, yes, keep people out of the workforce for an extended period..... Or that maybe if you spend a couple of years ramming it into people that they will possibly spend an extended period in a state of sickness that the simple psychological impact of this is that a lot of them get psychosomatic conditions such that they spend a lot time incapacitated from being able to rejoin the workforce......
No. Now is not the time for a consideration of any of this stuff. It's not like any of us predicted that this kind of thing could happen.
Rather now, we should consider the ethics of giving millions of people (for so we are told, it could be wheeled out, like statins and hypertension drugs before it) injections of new (and again relatively untested) compounds in order to mask conditions that are essentially psychological in nature. (As an aside, it's funny isn't it, that it is always the drug companies - massive global corporations with the power to influence governments and make huge political donations, that are the beneficiaries in financial terms, of such policies?) Surely something like obsessive eating disorders should be treated via counselling, via getting to the root cause of why the person is doing this? And unless it can be demonstrated that they have some endocrine dysfunction that is resulting in their continual feelings of hunger, then their therapy should involve counselling and self-esteem (or whatever) improvement sessions, rather than simply reaching for the effective chemical cosh of an appetite suppressant injection?
Call me old fashioned, but it seems to me that these problems are things that people must work through individually with the help of their doctors and in self help groups, rather than via the state mandating for the use of this drug or that, for the mass alteration of millions of people in terms of their behaviour.
This, after all, is quite possibly half of the reason that we are here in the first place.
-------------0---------
Third headline that got under my skin: "Lab delivers motherless mice with two fathers."
I mean, why would you do that?
We are told that it might be of significance to the treatment of infertility in women (can't really see how, but..) and also it might allow for gay male couples to have a child where both men have a genetic investment in the child produced.
Well okay. This seems like a reasonable thing, but isn't there a point beyond which science should not go in pursuit of pushing the boundaries of what can be done? It isn't that I would deny gay men the right to have a child, but aren't there sufficient unwanted children on the earth that tinkering with the natural way of producing a child in order to grant them the joy of parenthood becomes unnecessary? To love a child that is not of your own genetic makeup is entirely possible - I know, I have done it. I have absolutely no doubt that those gay couples that have made the considered decision to adopt a child who otherwise might well be denied the benefit of growing up in the presence of loving parents, would not change that child for the world, and would argue with vehemence that their love was any the less profound, because of the absence of a shared genetic heritage with their child.
Certainly with this research, we are back into the old chestnut of whether, just because you can do a thing, you should do it - and in my opinion this is one of the places you should draw a line and say probably better not.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard