The Labour Party today has a Commons majority of 165 seats, slightly down from the 174 majority on election night. This was almost identical to Tony Blair’s 1997 majority of 178. But extraordinarily, the 178 majority was won on 43.2% of the vote, while Starmer’s 2024 174 majority was won on just 33.7% of the vote — the smallest vote share for any single-party majority government in British history, and yet producing one of the largest majorities.
The system is throwing up perverse results as never before. The reason is that 2024 saw the lowest combined Conservative and Labour vote share since 1910, at 57.4%. This is fundamentally different from the threat to the two-party dominance by the Liberals and Social Democrats in the 1970s and 1980s, when the combined Labour-Tory vote share never fell below 70.0% (1983). So if you are thinking you have seen this before, you are very wrong. This is a far greater shift in voter behaviour.
In the 2010 general election, the combined Labour/Tory vote fell to 65.1%, but 2024 was a further step-change down. Every single opinion poll since has shown that this is a systemic decline, not a blip.
Then we get to the local elections held in England last Thursday, where the combined Labour and Tory vote was 37%, with Labour at just 14%. While these were predominantly (but by no means all) non-metropolitan English elections, Labour suffered near wipeout, losing 65% of the seats they had held under Starmer’s leadership in 2021 in an already devastatingly low performance.
It is important to note that these results for both Labour and the Tories were much, much worse than their local election performance in 2013 at the height of UKIP success, the previous low point for Labour and Tory performance in local elections. Again, you may think, “Oh, I have seen this before. It will pass.”
You have not seen this before, and it will not pass.
The BBC and Sky both made psephological projections for how the local elections would reflect in a general election. These are complicated calculations based on voter movement and with calculated compensation for the kind of seats being fought. It is not a simple projection from irrelevant types of Tory areas to the whole nation. The BBC projection to general election vote share was Reform 30%, Labour 20%, Liberal Democrats 17%, Conservatives 15%, Greens 11%, and Others 7%. The Sky projection was Reform 32%, Labour 19%, Conservatives 18%, Lib Dems 16%, Greens 7%.
Neither the BBC nor Sky projected this to general election seats, but it is undoubtedly the case that both Labour and the Conservatives are steering into the abyss, the tipping point where first-past-the-post massively punishes those who have substantive support but are not winning constituencies (the Liberal Democrat and, to some extent, the Green position for decades). Which of Reform, Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, and Green parties will emerge on top in England is a genuinely open question. Before going on to institutional and policy questions, I might say that my own thought is that the tendency of first-past-the-post everywhere to encourage two-party systems may well lead to Reform and the Liberal Democrats being those two parties; and that is certainly as probable as any other combination.
Institutionally, the Labour Party seems very strong, in that it is rooted in the trade union movement which created it and still funds it. Even under the lurch to the right under Starmer, the Labour Party retains some progressive policies which relate specifically to the rights of those in employment, and increases in the minimum and living wage and the Employment Rights Act reflect this. These are the inescapable tribute to the union paymasters, and a good thing too. Starmer’s right-wing economic policies rather focus attacks on those receiving benefits (some of whom are, of course, in work).
But institutional backing does not in itself ensure continued primacy. The Liberal Party had the active backing of a great many of Britain’s landed and industrial magnates. It did not founder for lack of institutional finance and muscle. Let us merely note that the Conservatives are in more jeopardy than Labour as their finances are reliant on contributions from wealthy individuals and companies which are ad hoc rather than institutional and susceptible to frictionless switching to Reform.
So what are the actual politics of this? Well, Reform voters are primarily motivated by dislike of immigration. While there are respectable economic arguments over the desirability of immigration, the simple truth is that most Reform voters are rather motivated by racist dislike of foreigners. I know that I have commenters here who like to deny this, but frankly, I do not live under a rock, I have fought elections, I used to live in the then-UKIP hotspot of Thanet, and I do not have a romanticised regard for the working class, and I have no doubt that Reform primarily channels racism.
But the interesting thing is that does not mean that Reform voters are “right-wing” in an economic sense. Opinion polls have found that most Reform voters favour renationalisation of public utilities, for example, and Farage has appealed to this by advocating for the nationalisation of the water industry and backing the nationalisation of the steel industry. Reform voters also favour rent controls, employment protections, and minimum wage legislation. On the left/right axis in economic policy, Reform voters are very substantially to the left of their party leadership, who almost certainly do not really believe in any of those things at all, though they may sometimes pretend.
George Galloway with the Workers’ Party has attempted to provide the mix of social conservatism in culture wars, including anti-immigration messaging, combined with left-wing economic policy, which might define a kind of left-wing populism, but failed miserably in Runcorn. It is only fair of me to make my own position clear, having stood for the Workers’ Party in the General Election on the issue of stopping the genocide. I do not support the culture wars agenda of the Workers’ Party and would not associate myself with the “Tough on Immigration, Tough on the Causes of Immigration” messaging the party used in Runcorn, even with the second half of that message emphasising an end to imperialist destabilisation of vulnerable countries. It is still too dog-whistle for my taste.
It remains my belief that Starmer has always been a deep-state operative and that he is deliberately driving the Labour Party to its own destruction. Among the strongest evidence for this, in my view, is the fact that all of the documentation on his involvement in the Assange case, the Savile case, the Janner case, and other high-level paedophile cases while he was Director of Public Prosecutions was allegedly destroyed by the state while the Conservatives were in office and Starmer in opposition. The Deep State was protecting him and preparing his way to power.
It is also interesting that the only time the mainstream media really turned on Boris Johnson during his premiership was in attacking Johnson for referencing Starmer’s involvement in the Savile case, which brought a torrent of media abuse of Johnson in defence of Starmer, even though it was one of the rare occasions where Johnson actually told the truth.
But even if you do not accept my theory that Starmer may be destroying the Labour Party on purpose, perhaps you might accept that Starmer would prefer to see the Labour Party destroyed than see it in power as a left-wing party. The Thatcherite agenda of austerity, benefit cuts and attacks on the non-working and disabled, monetarism, militarism and jingoism, with anti-immigrant policies allied to unquestioning Zionism, is perhaps a true reflection of Starmer’s core beliefs; as these align precisely with the Deep State agenda, the question of whether Starmer is a true believer or a blank cipher for the Deep State is moot.
With Labour emphasising “stop the boats” and deportations, there simply is no left-wing party among the complex five-party pattern emerging in English politics. It is also worth noting that under John Swinney, the SNP is firmly under control of its own neoliberal right wing in Scotland.
It is tempting to believe that a left-wing party must emerge to fill the gap in what is offered to the electorate, but that is not automatic. We may simply have a position where there is no left-wing choice of any stature. Jeremy Corbyn, for whom I have respect, has never indicated the dynamism and toughness required to drive a new party to success. Furthermore, he remains surrounded by the “soft Zionist” crew who convinced him as Labour leader that his best course was to continually apologise for non-existent anti-Semitism and speed up the expulsion of left-wingers from the party.
While a time of great political change is a time of great possibility, my own view is that what is going to emerge in England is going to be a dark period, with the extraordinary authoritarianism of the UK government, as already witnessed in the Public Order Act, Online Safety Act, and major police harassment of dissidents, becoming even more pronounced.
In Scotland, I am ever more confident of the prospects of Independence to escape from this. Scots do not want a right-wing government, and Reform will only split elements of the Unionist vote — it is no real threat to the Independence vote. As it becomes obvious that Westminster rule is going to be authoritarian right-wing rule for the foreseeable future, Scots will increasingly wish to quit the Union fast. Farage is an English archetype which is deeply unappealing to Scots, and, unlike Sturgeon, Swinney does not have the charisma to lead the Independence movement away from its goal.
My own focus in the coming year is very much going to be in moving forward on Scottish Independence. I hope to be adopted by the Alba Party as a candidate for the Scottish Parliamentary elections in 2026.
We are at the beginning of the biggest change in the UK political system for over a century. Get ready to play your part; inaction is not a sensible option in these dangerous times.
———————————
My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.
Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.
Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.
Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]
Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB
Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a
Allowed HTML - you can use:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>
Leave a comment
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Craig, I think your analysis of the present political climate it good. The labour party has always been divided as to how left wing it is and it is not helped in its attempts to run a mixed economy. It is constantly opposed or thwarted by main stream media attempts to derail such efforts and internal conflicts. I have pointed out before that opposition is possible. All of us have the power to subvert attempts to organize us by making the information collected from us invalid, by obfuscation, evasion or downright sabotage.
We do not need to cooperate with attempts to regiment us. Protest in Russia have shown that blank pieces of paper can be as powerful as the most well thought out slogan. During the war Citroën’s president, Pierre-Jules Boulanger was ordered to build trucks for the Nazi’s, he altered the dip stick design so that if gave an incorrect reading, they looked fine leaving the factory but seized up at critical moments, making them useless. A demonstration of 100,000 people can be managed by the police but can fifty or a hundred simultaneous demonstrations of 1000 people be similarly managed? We have the right in jury trials to decide against the wishes of the Judge and we should use the right. How difficult can it be to make a system unmanageable, how difficult is it to be difficult, in whatever way we choose. It is time to vote for Non of the Above in order to invalidate the outcome of unpalatable choices.
“A demonstration of 100,000 people can be managed by the police but can fifty or a hundred simultaneous demonstrations of 1000 people be similarly managed?”
The British authorities have shown the ability to control large demos for many years now – “kettling”. No doubt about that. Large demos are not the way forward.
The answer to your question is that 50-100 demos of 1000 people would have to be managed differently by the state in terms of a) demonstrators’ communications, b) demonstrators’ possible use of surprise, c) police logistics. But what is the point nowadays when 99% of people carry trackers voluntarily? The situation might be very much worse than you think.
Dunno why you bring voting for NOTA in, which has never been an option in British elections.
Similarly, jury nullification is great, but would informing everyone of this right be such a big thing? If it could be used in a coordinated way to do real damage to the system, we’d already be somewhere very different from (better than) where we are now.
The blank pieces of paper thing still has some potential, I think. Used a lot in Hong Kong and against Covid lockdowns when the current fascism in Britain started. There’s been a lot more resistance in Hong Kong than in most places including Britain and Russia. I like the use of blank pieces of paper… It tells the cops and the state they can f***ing shove the “freedom” act that they like to put on, because it is total bullsh*t and really when it comes down to it the basic relationship is between the ruling scum and their enforcers, thugs, and liars on one side and the rest of the population on the other. Anything that puts that message across in a “stick it up yer a*se” way, I’m in favour of.
Oh wait….I fell asleep for a while….where am I?….back to those Liberal Party voting figures in 1920s general elections…
“Jeremy Corbyn, for whom I have respect….”: Presumably, Murray’s respect for Corbyn has survived the indisputable fact that he promoted Starmer to a senior position in his shadow cabinet. If Corbyn had one iota of class consciousness, he would have asked what on Earth a KC barrister and Knight of the Realm was doing in the Labour Party. Whilst Corbyn was campaigning for the position of the leader of the Labour Party, he was attracting large crowds, potentially the core of a movement. Having succeeded, he turned his back on his supporters and concentrated on what he knows best, the world of speeches to his fellow Honourable Members, plus the odd Early Day Motion. He’s doing the same thing now, sermonising to hundreds of thousands of people looking for some political answers to the Gaza genocide, along with a sprinkling of TU leaders and Stalinists, all calling on the UK government to desist from their support for Israel, knowing full well they’ll be ignored.
Malcolm
If you don’t mind me saying so, your criticisms of Jeremy are disingenuous. Jeremy was trying to be inclusive. And he didn’t turn his back on his supporters. As for Gaza, Starmer is ignoring millions of people who are appalled by his stance and support for the genocide BN and his fascist buddies are in the process of committing. But what precisely WOULD you have Jeremy do regards Gaza?
“Jeremy”, when he was leader of the Labour Party, had to participate in the weekly nonsense called “Prime Minister’s Questions”. One precise thing he COULD have done regarding Gaza and Palestine was to use this platform to highlight the plight of the Palestinian people in the ghetto called Gaza. Here’s a search on Hansard using the keywords Palestine and Gaza. He kept his tongue firmly behind his teeth on these matters during his time as leader, only speaking after the right-wing political trash of the Labour Party chucked him out. Disingenuous, moi?
https://hansard.parliament.uk/search/MemberContributions?memberId=185&startDate=2015-01-01&endDate=2025-05-08&type=Spoken&searchTerm=palestine%20gaza%20&outputType=List&partial=False&sortOrder=1
Jeremy Corbyn was about the best you could get in the Labour party.
On the other hand, he doesn’t have a clue about class struggle and he has never had one.
I remember during the 1984-85 miners’ strike, he was saying that the way forward was everyone had to work together to vote Labour in the next general election, which was expected around 1987-88. I mean how stupid is it possible to get? (Waiting with a pencil ready to go into the polling station in three years’ time isn’t the way to win a strike.)
I think he’s genuine and I’d happily buy him a drink, but c’mon, he’s a bit of a dimwit. As you rightly say, his world is the world of honourable members, plus speeches to rallies where he goes on about what’s happening in the world of honourable members.
He’s a classic example of someone who has good faith and good intentions but he has been totally restricted all his life by not being able to recognise that parliamentarism is c*ck. I mean what the AF is the point in sitting still being asked a question on a parliamentary committee “Do you recognise Israel’s right to exist?” and giving the answer “I recognise Israel does exist”? Best not to have been in that room, or in that building FFS.
Perhaps if any of his mates are reading this, they can strap him to a chair or something and explain and explain until he understands stuff? I mean just a little stuff? They might as well do something useful in between the political meeting and the wine bar.
His manifesto promised to recognise Palestine, stop selling (some) weapons to the occupation regime there, and remove the de facto immunity of that regime’s officials from British law against war crimes and crimes against humanity. Good stuff, but it’s hardly Frantz Fanon, is it? Even so, that’s why he was brought down. But that was the same manifesto that mentioned transvestites about 17 times and said there should be 1 million climate change jobs. How glad I am that I’m not pro-parliamentarist.
Best if nobody who thinks they’ve got the slightest bit of sense gives any time to thoughts of a parliamentary road from now on. There is no parliamentary road.
Also … d’you know what? There’s no internet road either. This will soon become clear to a small minority – one that, by the standards of our time, will be as clear as glass and as hard as steel. Because it will have to be.
“Also … d’you know what? There’s no internet road either. ”
The internet is a wonderful way for people to let off steam and make f*ck all difference to anything.
“Resistance” on the internet is like when the landowner invites his serfs into a field every Sunday afternoon and lets them set up stalls and put on little acts where people play different characters, and where priests, bailiffs, and even the landowner himself can be gently lampooned, and perhaps sometimes the landowner puts himself in the stocks and people can pelt him with water-soaked sponges for 5 minutes.
The big question is where in the world will this become clear to people before it’s too late.
JK redux May 6, 2025 at 09:54
“Thanks Jams.
However the Russian invasion of Ukraine was implemented by Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
Using the word “engineered” implies that Putin was merely the tool of Western interests.
Denying him agency, as it were.”
Either you didn’t read the article in the link, or you have some kind of comprehension problem. To say “Using the word “engineered” implies that Putin was merely the tool of Western interests.” is nonsensical, and makes it plain that you will stick to your preconceived notions no matter what the evidence. And personifying Russian policy as done only by ‘Putin’ is also a propaganda ploy. You are not arguing in good faith.
Jams O’Donnell
May 6, 2025 at 12:21
A lot of unsupported assertions there Jams: “nonsensical”, ” you will stick to your preconceived notions no matter what the evidence”, “propaganda ploy”, “You are not arguing in good faith.”.
Do you really claim that the invasion of Ukraine by the Army of Russia was “engineered” by the West?
And that the invasion was authorized by anyone other than Putin?
JK Redux
Not ‘ engineered ‘ more provoking a response which they knew would happen.
The NATO creep towards Russia was well in train before Nuland and her cup cakes.
Of course Putin was ” bluffing ” and for eight years he probably was but, in the end he
was ‘provoked ‘ into having to do something about it.
He has acted as expected and the result is not what was expected.
Best laid plans of mice and men?
What is most remarkable on this blog is certainly that, regardless of what topic the current thread is addressing, it eventually always boils down to an argument between Putin supporters and Putin opponents. Just like a football game, hooligans included. But it probably doesn’t prevent passersby from reading the article, and well wishers from making donations.
So, as the Stones once wrote, “You can’t always get what you want… but… you’ll find you get what you need”.
Another strange death is that of the Gaza Strip…
Melrose
Happily there are only as many Putin opponents here as could be counted on the fingers of one badly mutilated hand. 😐
“What is most remarkable on this blog is certainly that, regardless of what topic the current thread is addressing, it eventually always boils down to an argument between Putin supporters and Putin opponents.”
Melrose.
Not so much Putin supporters – as pointing out the Wests engineered war against Russia, and its not difficult to spot what some of the anti-Russian commentors are – or who they work for – they stick out like a sore thumb.
All grist to the mill…
M Cutts
I believe that Putin chose to invade. He may have convinced himself that he had no choice if his miserable regime was to survive but he certainly had no democratic mandate to invade.
He lied through his teeth in the months before the invasion – another reason why Ukraine and the Evil Zapad cannot trust his word, only his actions.
‘Miserable regime.’ Maybe they all are, but I can’t see why anyone would pick out the Russian Federation. Name one that isn’t. USA? Germany? France? UK? Romania? Israel?
‘No democratic mandate to invade?’ There was actually considerable pressure to intervene in defence of the Russian speaking people in Ukraine as anyone familiar with Russian media would know. Since then support for the decision has remained solid as has President Putin’s standing with the electorate.
‘Putin lied through his teeth in the months beforehand.’ You will have to specify what these lies were. From 2007 he said that unless Russia was offered security guarantees in respect of NATO lying about its extension eastwards then there would be conflict. He was true to his word.
“I believe that Putin chose to invade.”
Do you think that the invasion was unprovoked, i.e. Putin just decided one morning, “you know what I’m going to do today, I’m going to invade Ukraine”? The persecution of the Donbassians by the Ukraine government had absolutely nothing to do with it, nor did anything else, it was just his whim because he’s evil and wanted to kill people.
Of course he chose to invade, just as the UK government chose to go to war with Germany, something that both times was a damn sight more unprovoked than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That doesn’t mean that he wanted to take that course.
JK Redux
Interesting theory that you have to have a ‘ Democratic Mandate ‘ to invade somewhere?
Netanyahu hasn’t got one and Trump certainly hasn’t got one so I’m not sure what you mean?
The problem Liberals ( and even left Liberals ) face is that they can be against the onslaught in Gaza/Palestine and Yemen but can stomach their own Imperialists being on the wrong side of history.
There are Left Patriots who uncritically support their own governments for the wrong reasons and
accidentally for the right ones.
In the hierarchy of Imperialism you have to look as to who is where and their reach and power and they don’t come any better than the USA who have their fingers in more world pies than Greggs Bakeries.
Or Ginster’s Pies – if you are a Southerner?
Unfortunately, the rest of the Western World ( despite its public protests still follow the Master).
Russia’s alleged future expansionism pales into insignificance relative to the US.
And the EU is just well …………….pale.
When there is an argument between people whose moral compasses do not align, debate is fruitless, unless these people are willing to consider adjusting their moral compass. The political position taken by people in the West on issues which do not directly affect them, except in an ideological sense or payment/emolument/material advantage, the latter often hidden, is not relevant except from a moral perspective. Commentators/correspondents in the West are generally quite secure, despite sometimes limited or self-inflicted financial hardship. Yet, as in this case, some people have no sympathy for the suffering of those whose lives are being destroyed. It is London to a brick that if those in the West were in the position Ukrainians are in they would not so readily defend one country invading another and creating such devastation- Discounting the AI bots, of course, which we can do nothing about and will be increasingly difficult to recognise. We have in Ukraine an issue of high geopolitical significance. Russia was provoked by the West. It reacted as expected and perhaps as required. Who knows, or wants to know, what goes on in geopolitics. The facts are. Russia is busy with a policing operation in Ukraine and is at war with the West, apparently, but still delivering gas to Germany et al, apparently. Strange business. The West is sanctioning Russia, but keeps buying, and paying for, Russian gas. Hypocrisy reigns. Our problem in the West is the rot within. It is said that a people get the governance they deserve. I note that very recently the Bundestag didn’t vote the right way for their new Chancellor. So they had to vote again, pace the EU referendums. The people who are treated thus, dutifully keep voting until they get it right (for their controllers). Who is to blame for the mess people are in?Truly, if people are not on the same moral page, even reading different books altogether, they are sorely divided, and naturally not by accident. The controllers make sure that people who will allow themselves to be confused are divided and squabbling amongst each other forever. There is so much gaslighting going on, anyway, and people doing it and taking the bait, that it is difficult to be optimistic about Europe’s (and the West’s) prospects.
In fact Mr Putin is far more popular with Russian citizens – and quite a lot of Ukrainians – than any Western politician with their own people. (Not really saying much, though, is it?)
And Russia is more democratic than any NATO country – again, not a very big claim. The main difference is that they adhere to their own laws and regulations, and prosecute corruption when they see it. Whereas in the West corruption is mostly legal and institutionalised. Just look at where US Presidents, Senators, and Congressmen get their money from. And also look at their individual “net worth”.
Westerners who emigrate to Russia tend to be full of astonished praise for its civilisation. In Soviet times Westerners were used to stories about how poor Russians were, and how amazed they were at the goods for sale in Western shops. Today the roles have been reversed.
@JK Redux – Are you trying to slip the assumption through that 2022 was the big moment? The US and Britain had been fuelling conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk since 2014.
“Best laid plans of mice and men?”
Rats, more like.
Just saying.
Mr Putin was bluffing, because he already knew that if Russia intervened in Ukraine then the USA and NATO would raise the stakes and pile in with everything they had. Although the Russians no doubt hoped to reach a reasonable agreement early on – as they nearly did before Boris Johnson ordered Mr Zelensky to keep fighting – it was always on the cards that they would end up fighting all of NATO. And they had to be quite sure of winning. Hence the delay.
Politics is (among other things) the art of the possible.
@Tom – You think Putin is a strategic idiot? I don’t understand what you think his bluff was. The rulers in Russia had been supporting the Donetsk and Luhansk governments since 2014, just as the rulers in the US and Britain, and Zionists, and other fascists in the Ukraine, had been undermining those governments from that time (in both cases with military force). If there was a successful strategic bluff, it seems more likely to have been from the west.
As for the “little green men” meme in the British media, it seems a case of “he who smelt it, dealt it”. I.e. everyone knew about the Russian assistance but the western assistance was more hush-hush and its scale may possibly have successfuly been kept a secret from the Russian side. (Just speculation.)l
Anyway Russia isn’t fighting all of NATO. Not yet anyway. If it did, the conflict would go nuclear within about a week because of NATO air superiority.
So, as I thought, you didn’t read the article. Poor show. Goodbye.
Jam’s O’Donell
Bye.
Sorry Mr Cutts – that wasn’t addressed to you.
You really have to read “Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine” by Scott Horton. Maybe you’ll stop posting silly excuses for your corrupted and nationalistic country.
You see, if history teaches us anything, it is just one thing: the Great Powers will always challenge each other’s might and go to war – unless they settle for an agreement to divide their spheres of invluence. Europe owed its peaceful years to the Congresses of Vienna (1814/5), of Paris (1856), of Berlin (1878) and finally to the Yalta-Potsdam agreements of 1944/5. I repeat, there MUST BE an agreement or there will be a great war.
Now, there is no such agreement since 1991 when the Yalta-Potsdam system had ended. This was the choice of the US leadership who declared “the end of history” and started “Operation Ignore Russia” because they believed Russia was not a Great Power anymore. Russia, however, thought otherwise. And while Boris Yeltsin could only gnash his teeth, Putin decided he will end the unipolar world.
And so your country made the wrong choice by siding with one of the Great Powers in the oncoming confrontation. As the result, you got smashed by the other Great Power. This won’t have happened if Ukraine stayed neutral, but it did not. You can whine all you want about the “unprovoked war of aggression” but you had it coming once you inspired for NATO membership. The US leadership played their role too, by bribing your elites and by dragging Ukraine toward NATO. Smart people who understand how this world works, like William Burns, warned as early as 2008 that a NATO MAP for Ukraine would be a casus belli but the fools at the top did not listen. But it was Ukraine who made its lethal choice. This was your choice, I repeat, and therefore I have no sympathy for you.
Now you’re just trolling.
And you seem to have given up arguing, rather abruptly.
Comments about Starmer are very accurate.
Valid criticism of Galloway.
In desperation, Johnson told the truth about Starmer and was attacked for it.
“In desperation, Johnson told the truth about Starmer and was attacked for it.”
Tony.
For me – Johnson got his knuckle wrapped in the media for attacking Starmer – who in reality is on the same side as Johnson, Starmer wants to destroy the Labour party, or at the very least purge any socialists from it and he’s doing a good job of that.
Of course Johnson’s attack could have been a limited Hangout – to try and adhere the public too him – Johnson in my opinion is a vile nasty sociopath – and Starmer isn’t much better, both crawled out from under a rock.
Con this be a replay of what happened in France when Macron came to power as a 3-d party candidate, ending the 50+ years of 2-party (the gaullists and the socialists) dominance?
There’s not really an established party system in France the way there has been in Britain. No president of the Fifth Republic has been the property of a party in the sense that party mechanisms were used to remove a string of Tory prime ministers in Britain in the present century.
Although one can compare and contrast. But the same goes for the Five Star Movement in Italy, etc.
I certainly see some similiarities. The general idea is, when people do not want to vote for either one of the 2 parties (because though they are different they are all the same because the same Deep State owes them), there comes a 3d party that demonstrates an appealing alternative. The idea is then to highjack the leadership of such party so it will do the same thing when elected. This scheme worked brilliantly in Italy where the “firebreathing right-wing radical new Mussolini” Meloni turned into another neo-liberal shrew after she’s been elected, because the beauty of Democracy is that leaders do not have to fulfill their promises. Promise whatever they want then flip-flop, that’s what the current modus operandi is. This worked in Ukraine when Zelensky was elected in 2017, and to some extent in France where Macron simply borrowed whatever he liked from the Right and from the Left.
Sue USA Intelligence services and banks – from blissex comments:
Someone in USA also press charge against USA banks. Talk to a lawyer.
The situations that really matters and Fed and other officials don’t want to see discussed is far more devastating:
*essentially all derivatives contracts have a clause that says that when the underlying securities are based on fraud, the originator of the derivatives has to buy them back at their face value*.
Therefore all USA banks would go bankrupt, because the core USA banks originated trillions of derivatives based on fraudulent securities.
Since nobody in the circles of power wants that, then no securities, in particular no mortgage securities, must be legally recognized as fraudulent.
That’s one reason why USA bank CEOs (and not just USA ones) have had complete legal immunity from prosecution: if they are convicted of fraud, then the buyers of derivatives based on that fraud can bankrupt the whole USA bank system by demanding to be reimbursed at par.
That is also another reason why the Fed has been buying enormous amounts of mortgage based securities: because the Fed obviously would never do such a vulgar thing as sue the issuers of those derivatives based on fraudulent securities, or demand that they be paid back at par if the fraud became a legal fact.
Evidence guccifer 2.0 teh dnc: https://xmppomemoqubes.blogspot.com/2025/05/sue-usa-intelligence-services-and-banks.html
Use Uleway “dumbphone” and Qubes OS defeat GCHQ: https://xmppomemoqubes.blogspot.com/2025/04/use-uleway-dumbphone-along-with-qubes.html
As a left-winger who does not support the free movement of labour or capital (at least in terms of foreign ownership of UK houses for profit), “inaction” is about the only option left open, besides schadenfreude towards our political parties and MSM ‘experts’.
Our GDP per capita, adjusted for purchasing power parity, has declined for decades. Drucker was writing about productivity before I was even born (1969). Letting in more people is a quick fix which masks some problems (e.g. poor NHS training and retention) whilst exacerbating others (e.g. housing affordability). This is nothing to do with racism – it makes no difference whether the migrants are white Eastern Europeans or black African Muslims – but I agree that foreigners are being blamed for the failures of our Etonian ‘betters’ and their pathologically greedy paymasters. (‘Xenophobic’ would be more accurate than ‘racist’, but is still a smear in some cases.)
I believe Reform is a one trick protest party and not a viable, long term government.
My food is getting cold…
Housing affordability has nothing to do with immigration. There is no historical evidence that demand for housing or the supply thereof has any effect on the price, except in extremely limited geographic areas. Indeed all the evidence points in the opposite direction, that the times that housing supply has been at its greatest have been times when prices have risen at their fastest. See also Ireland and Spain, where the oversupply of housing did not make it any cheaper, it simply resulted in there being lots of empty houses. There is no lack of housing and there is no lack of cheap housing, if you take the UK as a whole. The only thing there is a lack of is cheap housing in expensive places and that is because local authorities have a very limited supply of housing to offer for less than market rents.
“Well, Reform voters are primarily motivated by dislike of immigration. While there are respectable economic arguments over the desirability of immigration, the simple truth is that most Reform voters are rather motivated by racist dislike of foreigners”.
I cannot speak for anyone else, but insofar as I would vote Reform to reduce immigration, my thinking would not be racist. The UK is already grossly overpopulated – a situation much exacerbated by recent massive immigration, legal and illegal. But I do wish to preserve British culture and traditions – something I have not noticed Mr Murray say much about. And please note that dislike of foreigners is by no means necessarily “racist”. I’m not keen on knife crime, terrorism, systematic rape, or Sharia law (here in Britain). And I prefer to be governed by people who are firmly aware of the British traditions of freedom, tolerance, fair play, etc.
I am strongly opposed to almost everything that recent governments have done. I oppose:
– Net Zero, and all policies arising from a belief in rapid anthropogenic global warming.
– Political correctness, wokeness, etc.
– The Covid/WHO hysteria, with the concomitant unconstitutional authoritarianism.
– The nexus between the Deep State and corporations, to their mutual advantage.
– Hostility to Russia, China, Iran, and other countries that have done us no harm and mean us no harm.
– Preparation of the armed forces for killing people abroad in the service of corporate profits, when they should be defending our borders.
– Thermonuclear weapons in any shape or form. I believe the UK should get rid of them, and forbid any other nation to bring them here. They merely paint a huge target on us.
– US and NATO garrisons in the UK. We should be able to defend ourselves, and there is no point in there being here once they have given up trying to use the UK as a base for attacking far more powerful nations.
” The UK is already grossly overpopulated – a situation much exacerbated by recent massive immigration, legal and illegal. ”
The problem is the pursuit of economic growth above all else, essential if the super-rich are going to be able to survive on interest paid by everyone else. For this growth you need bodies and if you want bodies, you need babies. However, you need babies 18 years ago for bodies now and 18 years ago, the British didn’t have enough babies, so to keep the economy growing, we need to import bodies, i.e. immigration. Of course, we could abandon the chimera of continual economic growth, but how would the rich be able to afford their next super-yacht if we all started defaulting on our loans?
Increased population isn’t necessary for economic growth. Increased productivity – which has been steadily rising ever since the industrial revolution – will ensure that by itself.
Simpletons who declare Social Security / state pensions a “Ponsi scheme” completely fail to understand this.
Just so, glenn_nl. Isn’t Britain supposed to be one of the most inventive and creative countries in the world? Didn’t it start the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions of the 18th century? Even today British people have won more Nobel prizes than the citizens of any other country except the USA. My own college, Trinity College Cambridge, alone has earned 34 – the same as Sweden, the 5th ranked nation.
Wasn’t it Alan Turing who had the original idea of the programmed computer – the Universal Turing Machine? The following words clearly illustrate his belief in the power of thought, as opposed to the inertia of wealth.
‘Turing was thoroughly dismissive of the EDSAC. He wrote: “The ‘code’ which he [Wilkes] suggests is however very contrary to the line of development here, and much more in the American tradition of solving one’s difficulties by means of much equipment rather than by thought”’.
– David Leavitt “The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer”
That’s an interesting quote from Turing, Tom
Strangely enough, it matches my experience while working in Silicon Valley back in those heady days at the start of the ‘Internets’ revolution.
People there wanted to throw heavier h/w at any particular problem. The solutions were generally much more subtle than throwing a Cray time-lease at a task, when – with a bit more cunning (and all modesty aside, something of a knack for s/w engineering), a Sun Ultra-2 did the job just fine.
How did it go in Britain on the “not getting stuck with a stupid notation for calculus” front, compared with on the continent?
Anyway…posh Brit Turing who went to boarding school and then to King’s College Cambridge thinks posh Brits can think whereas Septics are quite good with equipment – shocker.
“Wasn’t it Alan Turing who had the original idea of the programmed computer ”
Er no, that was Charles Babbage.
Many got there before Alan Turin , Konrad Zuse in Germany was one Tommy Flowers never got the credit that Turin did.
Mechanical computers go back hundreds of years . So no Alan Turing did not have the original idea of the programmed computer
@Brian Sides – Thanks for this. I hadn’t heard of Konrad Zuse. Interesting.
Turing was a nutter, as a reading of his famous article “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” will show:
https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/activities/ieg/e-library/sources/t_article.pdf
Which is not to say he didn’t make a contribution to computer science. Of course he did. B*stard.
I think the ancient Greeks thought of a programmed computer first with their Antikytheria mechanical device.
If you’re going to go around calling people simpletons, Glenn, it might be worth knowing that the term is ‘Ponzi scheme’ after Charles Ponzi. And the UK’s National Insurance system is basically one giant Ponzi scheme because today’s beneficiaries (mostly pensioners) are being paid out of contributions from a far greater number of today’s contributors (mostly employees), who are being promised similar pay-outs, and unlike private pensions almost nothing is being invested in income-generating assets.
Jeez, R-LA, I do know exactly what a Ponzi scheme is, and who Ponzi was.
You could try turning the patronising tone down a little, you know?
If you’re going to make arguments like this, comparing NI or Social Security to a Ponzi scheme, you ought to try thinking about it first. Ponzi schemes run out of investors. Unless you really think there are not going to be any new entrants to the scheme – as in, zero new people entering the workforce, any comparison is just silly.
RLA: “…today’s beneficiaries […] are being paid out of contributions from a far greater number of today’s contributors […]”
Exactly! Is our population shrinking at an alarming rate or something? Is productivity plummeting? No? Then it isn’t a freaking Ponzi scheme! That’s just a very, very stupid right wing trope to fool the gullible into allowing state support and state pensions to be abolished.
Why are you peddling these simplistic right-wing talking points? You used to be better than this.
@RLA – What are you describing is an insurance scheme and most of it would apply across to say car, house, or travel insurance. The balance in the NI Fund isn’t invested on the stock market or in property but it’s still lent to (another part of the) government at interest. It’s certainly small compared to payments and expenditure. It’s less than £100bn I think. But would you rather have higher payments and smaller expenditure so that the fund could be bigger?
And where would you have it invested? In crypto, such as Trump coin for example, which is really a Ponzi scam?
Sorry Glenn, couldn’t resist after you wrote ‘Ponsi’. I’ll let you off with a fat-finger. I’m afraid though that the NI system is a Ponzi. It doesn’t matter that people are still entering the workforce. Most of them will be on low wages, with little prospect of substantial wage increases, and are therefore not paying much in the way of NI contributions (nor will their employers) – and of course, many of them are having their incomes supplemented with Universal Credit, which is the only way they can make ends meet. People were still putting money into Ponzi’s scheme when it collapsed, just not enough to cover his liabilities.
It doesn’t matter whether productivity is increasing (as it stands UK productivity has barely increased over the past 15 years), or even whether militant unions (which, apart from the RMT, have basically disappeared from Britain) ensure that most productivity gains are transferred to wages, because the pension payouts are linked to wages and, thanks to the triple lock, will often exceed wage growth.
UK governments are not going abolish the state pension – look at what just happened after Labour scrapped the fairly insubstantial winter fuel allowance. What will happen is that pension payouts will start to be increasingly funded from general taxation, to the detriment of things like education, social services, roads etc – and maybe even the NHS and defence. This is what life is like in a gerontocracy.
None of this is a right-wing trope or talking point, very stupid or otherwise. In fact, Reform UK want to increase the state pension as part of a substantial increase in public spending (levelling-up etc), as well as introduce £70 billion worth of tax cuts, something they say can say can easily be done by eliminating ‘Whitehall waste’. Obviously, they’re in la-la land, but still doing quite well in the polls and, more importantly, in elections.
Thanks for your reply Brian. As Aneurin Bevan pointed out a while ago, the big secret of the National Insurance fund is that there ain’t no fund. Any excess goes on general government expenditure. That said, if I were entrusted with billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to invest, I would put it in global equity tracker funds from May 1 to November 1, and in sovereign bond / commercial paper funds the rest of the year (except if the yield on the FTSE All-share was above 3.8% on May 1 or below 2.7% on November 1, then I’d keep it in equity / bond funds respectively). I call this seasonal investing plus. Hope that answers your question, back to dealing with this bad boy now:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carex_pendula
Correction: That should be cash in equity funds from November 1 to May 1. Apologies for the error – the hanging sedge has sent me a bit wappy. It’s putting up a good fight – had enough of it for one day, need a Pimms & lemonade.
“Increased population isn’t necessary for economic growth. Increased productivity – which has been steadily rising ever since the industrial revolution – will ensure that by itself.”
You appear to be making the common mistake of thinking that all economic activity is provided by large industrial concerns. Yes, there increased productivity, mainly through increased mechanisation, can boost economic activity without extra bodies, but the vast majority of commerce is small businesses employing a few people, where activities are not amenable to mechanisation and thus the opportunity for increased productivity is very limited or absent. There are, after all, only so many hours in a day.
Things that we really need – food, energy, stuff, is produced in a highly more efficient and mechanised way on an on-going basis. Most people used to work on farms, and then later divided their labour between farms and industry.
Productivity, whether measured by sheer output, calories, ‘stuff’, capital, or any other useful measure, has increased per worker on average on a rising basis since the industrial revolution, and continues to do so.
Worker wages have not matched this rise since the early 1980s.
Your point about small businesses is irrelevant to this larger picture, sorry.
You don’t need an ever increasing number of babies – which was your original point, if you recall. You only need extra productivity, which we have in abundance.
“You only need extra productivity, which we have in abundance.”
Which we did have in abundance, until Thatcher started to de-industrialise the UK. Most of the easy productivity gains had already been realised by then and de-industrialisation removed most of what was left of the potential. Thanks to Thatcher, we are now largely a service economy and that means bodies if it is going to deliver any meaningful growth and not merely an increase in the sort of “paying people to dig holes and then fill them in again” GDP. Yes, Britain has become a lot more productive since the beginning of the C20th, but I doubt if productivity has increased much since the beginning of the C21st.
Trouble is, Tom, your first three points that you are “strongly opposed to” above are BS. Particularly the first, which can only come from a position of profound ignorance.
That’s all very well – people are entitled to be as silly as they like on all sorts of issues. But it does sap the credibility of an individual, if they repeatedly go around asserting their “strong belief” in something, but lack any interest (or the courage) to discuss it.
You’re certainly not the only one of course! I remember you giving a bunch of rather simplistic assertions some time back, but completely ignored all follow-up. Same as the rest of you climate change deniers (Bayard being another fine example).
Help me out here – why are people like you so sure that climate change isn’t happening, but then rather than explain themselves or argue the point, you get all shy and run away?
glenn-_nl
Many years ago I used to regularly get on a Train from Manchester to London and the only high rise blocks I used to see were in Bournville near Brum.
Obviously getting nearer to London the population used to crowd up and in London obviously it used to be relatively crowded.
Therefore the idea that Britain is ‘ overcrowded ‘ is nonsense.
The cities and Big Towns are, but away from them it isn’t.
Scotland and Wales are definitely not overcrowded.
Both beautiful places who could do with a bit more ‘ overcrowding’
That would liven things up for young people without a doubt.
The cities and big towns came about for an industrial reasons of course and if any immigration occurred it would have been due to white immigration ( The Irish and The Scots as well as The Welsh and the Northerners) going Down South – not foreign immigration.
Basically, the Peasantry going from the fields to the factories.
The North was well catered for in terms of factory exploitation anyway.
My point is that jobs were available ( at exploitational rates of course ) but this is why housing was built in order to keep the working punters relatively happy and sling in the pubs – Gin Joints and a lively place then ,who would wish to go back to say boring Kirkintilloch as young man or woman?
Sin City is a lure not a repulsion and that is why Big Cities are populous.
The only thing I would say re: immigration is that if you want to make the UK a welcoming place then you need to look after people – including the people who already live there.
If not then you are asking for friction.
But past government s and this one do not have any plans for looking after anyone, no matter their skin colour, – save for the people who pay for them – the rich.
Farage and Bin Tice have no intention of looking after anyone neither.
But, we will have to go through the charade again of thinking that someone ( or some people) have the masses best interests at heart and that THEY can do things better than the last lot.
The latest Messiah.
My personal opinion is that, if this was Lab Experiment over the last 40+ years I would have burnt the Lab down by now and tried a new experiment.
If only to see what would have happened differently?
p.s. White rats are very nice animals as long as their environment is civilised as well as being looked after and not every Rat for themselves.
When it isn’t they fight and eat each other.
Remind anyone of anyone or anything?
MMC: All well and good, but I’m not quite sure why this reply is directed towards anything I might have said here, on this particular thread…?
My post here concerned shy climate change denialists, such as Tom (and the equally shy Bayard for that matter), who like to boldly announce their denialism, and then get all coy and run away.
Mr Cutts, while I agree with much of what you say I note that your high-rise free trips from Manchester were “many years ago”. You need to revisit what’s now often called Manc-hattan and maybe rethink your assertion that “the idea that Britain is ‘overcrowded‘ is nonsense.”
In reality, the country in which you observed the lack of high-rise blocks (England) is now one of the most densely populated countries in the world given its population size. There are, of course, more densely populated countries in the world but nearly all these have much smaller populations and their higher densities result from their small geographic areas. Last time I checked the only country in the same ballpark as England (ie. large population and high density) was Bangladesh.
The other less densely populated countries of Britain make the figure slightly better for the UK as a whole. But from many perspectives (concern for climate change, loss of biodiversity, etc) there needs to be zero population growth globally and the UK should play its part. (This is especially so given the relatively large per capita carbon footprint in the UK.) Our politicians are too wedded to the ponzi scheme of neverending growth for that to ever happen, of course.
¨There are, of course, more densely populated countries in the world but nearly all these have much smaller populations and their higher densities result from their small geographic areas. Last time I checked the only country in the same ballpark as England (ie. large population and high density) was Bangladesh.¨
IMHO bizarre comment!
Density is density!
Why only England and not the UK.
Where do you put the size of comparable population to compare?
Would Nederland count or is it too small?
According to
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population-density
USA is about 1/7 of the UK density or 1/10 of England!
So about 2 Billion should not be a problem!
Algeria is about 15 times bigger than the UK with 45 million people with 80% of desert .
Density is about 20 per km2 compared to the UK 287/km2!
Would 200 million people be a good balance for that size of land?
You seem to have entirely missed the point, Mr Pigeon.
Australia is very highly urbanised. Just saying.
Quite possibly I have missed someone’s point.
But definitely population density like most statistics can mislead.
“Help me out here – why are people like you so sure that climate change isn’t happening, but then rather than explain themselves or argue the point, you get all shy and run away?”
Because I know from experience that any attempt to argue the point that climate change is 100% natural will only result in you telling me why I am wrong and you are right at great length and the chances of persuading you to see a different point of view are non-existent. I suspect I would have more success trying to persuade the next Pope that God doesn’t exist. Also this is not a post about climate change, so any such discussion would be OT.
Bayard
There’s nothing to stop natural and man made climate change from happening at the same time.
Indeed there isn’t. That’s what I believe is happening. With the man-made component being negligible. Temperatures have been rising very gradually since about 24,000 years ago – which is why we are now in a nice cosy interglacial, and not huddled in caves and reliant on killing animals every day to survive. Any time now the interglacial may end, bringing back literally freezing conditions. It’s not wise to try to make that happen sooner and harder.
The fact/problem is that climate records only cover the last 300 odd years[*], and the planet has been around for around 4.5 billion years. If the earth’s age was equivalent to a mile then our records cover approx. 0.1mm (mistakes are mine). A bit hard to make a judgement based on that ?
What’s more most/all computer models used to extrapolate forward the climate changes do not include the affects of our nearest star or the affects of water vapour (clouds), the two biggest drivers of the climate, not forgetting volcanoes. The models are deficient ?
Climate change is a natural fact, man’s impact is negligible compared with natural changes.
IMO The major problem for mankind is pollution and destruction of resources, the planet is fine with or without us.
[*] Tree rings, ice cores, yeah right ! But, these tell us nothing about mankinds impacts.
“There’s nothing to stop natural and man made climate change from happening at the same time”
No, there wouldn’t be if there was any man-made climate change, but there isn’t, at least not any more.
I like climate change because I like nature. Thanks Mum!
What I absolutely don’t like is the calling of those who do not believe there is any substantial human contribution to climate change “climate change denialists”, as if we deny the fact of climate change.
Thanks, Bayard, for explaining my position so clearly. I wanted to state my opinions, not to be dragged down into an endless battle of allegations and counter-citations. glenn_nl and some others seem to be filled with religious certainty, and there is no point trying to debate them. I prefer to state my case for the record, then stand back and watch what happens.
As Mark Twain perceptively observed, “It is difference of opinion that makes horse races”. In every race, one horse wins, unless there is a dead heat. Arguing about the likely outcome is a waste of breath past a certain point.
Actually no, I would love to be proven wrong in my understanding of what is in store for the world and it’s inhabitants. Little would give me greater joy.
A horse race that you mentioned is pretty inconsequential in the great scheme of things. Acknowledging reality and how to respond to it in government policy, and as a society, is very consequential indeed.
“I suspect I would have more success trying to persuade the next Pope that God doesn’t exist”.
How much do you know about the Roman Catholic hierarchy and its history, Bayard? I suspect that your scenario might be much easier than you think. (Bearing in mind, among many other things, Dostoevsky’s Legend of the Grand Inquisitor).
That’s a convenient way to duck out right at the start. This isn’t a question of religion – not on my part, anyway – it’s a question of science. Not religion, not beliefs – science.
If you’re not up to having your beliefs questioned, I fully understand.
But it’s hard to respect the opinion of someone who provides no more than empty assertions, and then comes up with nothing but self-congratulatory bluster as to why they are unable to give supporting evidence, or respond to challenges.
“This isn’t a question of religion – not on my part, anyway – it’s a question of science. Not religion, not beliefs – science.”
Scientists do not feel the need to defend their theories every time someone questions them. That is the behaviour of the religious enthusiast. Scientists are too busy trying to disprove their own theories, this is the “Scientific Method”. I know that the so-called “science” behind man made global warming is based on a fairly fundamental mistake. This is by looking at the physics behind global heat balances rather than endless computer models designed to bolster existing theories instead of to test them to destruction as per the Scientific Method. However, I don’t feel the need to pop up every time someone mentions climate change on this blog to point this out because I am not a man made global warming evangelist. I am only writing this because I was addressed by name. Now I will shut up because all this is thoroughly OT.
B: “Now I will shut up because all this is thoroughly OT.”
Aww… c’mon, man! You just did it again! Did a load of denialism, then got all shy and ran away from any further discussion!
It was OT when you brought it up in the first place. It was OT when you replied above.
It’s just suddenly become too off topic now you’ve made a weak case, and declared that’s it – you’ve had the last word. You might as well have run off with fingers in the ears shouting, “Lalalalala!” How brave and fearless is that!
But thoroughly, predictably typical of shy denialists (100% of them, incidentally). Very capable of making bold pronouncements, but oh, so coy when anyone pushes back.
“”It was OT when you brought it up in the first place. It was OT when you replied above.”
FFS!, Can you not read? I only brought it up because I was referenced by name, by you, as I said. That’s why I did so even though it was and is OT. Frankly, I’m surprised we haven’t been both deleted from this thread by the mods. I have no doubt tried their patience quite badly already and am not going to tempt fate by getting into another pointless argument about one of today’s religion substitutes. I explained my thinking in order to explain my thinking, not to try and convince you or any of your fellow believers, something I don’t feel the need to do.
“Trouble is, Tom, your first three points that you are “strongly opposed to” above are BS. Particularly the first, which can only come from a position of profound ignorance”.
Rather a good example of exactly what you say about me: that I make assertions and then “run away” without justifying them. To which you have added a rather poisonous element of personal abuse.
Why would I even consider debating anything with a person who accuses me of “profound ignorance” and BS? Maybe that is parliamentary language nowadays, but I don’t care for it. And it strongly suggests to me that I would be wasting my precious time.
Perhaps that wasn’t the best choice of language, Tom, I am sorry.
If you would care to discuss, feel free to do so on the forum dedicated to the subject. You will find the discussion there is surprisingly respectful.
Tom
“The UK is already grossly overpopulated – a situation much exacerbated by recent massive immigration, legal and illegal. But I do wish to preserve British culture and traditions – something I have not noticed Mr Murray say much about. And please note that dislike of foreigners is by no means necessarily “racist”. I’m not keen on knife crime, terrorism, systematic rape, or Sharia law (here in Britain). And I prefer to be governed by people who are firmly aware of the British traditions of freedom, tolerance, fair play, etc.”
In summary what you are saying is that immigrants are responsible for the majority of the ills of society which you enlist. That by definition and without clear statistic proof is a racist trope.
Immigration is a very complex subject and is partly driven by deliberate policies to fill gaps we cannot fill and which incidentally constitute a financial and brain drain on poorer countries, as well as the desire to use our educational institutions as a source of income. The major part of immigration is actually encouraged and regulated but people who are opposed to increased immigration do not seem to be sufficiently discriminatory around the relative numbers in each category. This is why making blanket statements like yours, whilst wrapping yourself with the Union Jack, are racists. But the problem often with racists is that they lack of self awareness.
SA’s comment epitomises the reasons why I very rarely visit Mr Murray’s blog. Lots of good intentions, a great deal of wisdom and practical experience – but too much snide and hopelessly illogical backbiting.
“In summary what you are saying is that immigrants are responsible for the majority of the ills of society which you enlist. That by definition and without clear statistic proof is a racist trope”.
I did not say what you represent me as having said at all. I did not say, and do not believe, “that immigrants are responsible for the majority of the ills of society”.
As Alfred Korzybski used to state, “I have said what I have said. I have not said what I have not said”.
Ta-ta for now.
Beg pardon. You did not say it but it is heavily implied.
Yes I agree!
Mr Tom is a great commentator IMHO and his comment was below his Par.
What I mean is that He has fantastic ability to express himself and complicated issues in very comprehensive/unambiguous way.
As Alfred Korzybski used to state, “I have said what I have said. I have not said what I have not said”.
Are you familiar with the phenomenon of a racist dogwhistle? Probably.
People who repeatedly deny using them are often their most avid enthusiasts. (Just saying … )
Tom, I agree 100% with everything you have said.
looking at the photo in the article I have only one question – why do you elect such ugly people? With a “charisma” like that, a person is bound to have mental problems. Scary game character for naughty kids. Couldn’t you find anyone better?
Sorry, I know you expected better of me… bla bla bla… I’m in a bad mood today.
Well, I’d say he is repulsive rather than ugly.
I, on the other hand, really am ugly! Which is why I’ve always hated my photo being taken, and why I always have my computer’s camera lens physically blocked (not just turned off) during Zoom meetings.
Try doing nice little favours for people when you don’t have to. Should do that anyway, but it might help improve your mood. And you know we like having you around here!
“Well, I’d say he is repulsive rather than ugly.”
Good lord, those teeth.
Have to admit though, this, courtesy of the FT, made me laugh:
on.ft.com/4d4HYa9
“And you know we like having you around here!”
Tatyana, he’s right you know.
Oh and Neil, it’s what’s inside that counts – it really is.
British teeth, a row of tombstones, courtesy of our world beating NHS.
Oh, maybe your healthcare system was what Peter Jackson had in mind when he made The Lord of the Rings. I mean the ugly face that Ian Holm (one of my favorite British actors!) made when he performed Bilbo Baggins’ transformation under the influence of the ring.
Compare
https://cs13.pikabu.ru/post_img/big/2023/06/07/8/1686140292171663032.jpg
Personally, I find both “smiles” very similar. And scary.
Thank you for your kindness, friends, and I apologize for that comment yesterday. A thousand times I’ve told myself to keep my mouth shut when in a bad mood, to not broadcast misanthropic or stupid thoughts outwardly.
Sorry.
Fortunately, at my age, I have found that a good night’s sleep, and a half pound of excellent chocolates with a couple of cups of hot coffee in the morning, works wonders and restores an optimistic outlook on life.
However, I look at the democratic process of electing people to office, much like hiring a candidate to do a job.
With several million people in the country, I ask, why this one?
Why did they elect Biden as president, although he is a terrible father and could not raise a decent son. Does he reflect the values of Americans?
Why did they elect Zelensky? He had experience in comedy and entertainment, does this best reflect the values of Ukrainians?
I won’t talk about appearance and smile anymore, otherwise my mood will get ruined again.
Pete is right, it’s what’s inside that counts. But I’m afraid that only applies to men.
With women – and I speak as a woman – appearance is the first thing that makes an impression.
You can be a pretty child, then an awkward teenager, then a nice-looking girl, and then go back to being ugly with puffiness, excess weight and hair loss during pregnancy, and then back to being pretty again after, but as you age, you gradually and steadily become one of those people who are invisible. As if you have no value anymore.
And in any of these incarnations, no one cares about your inner world. Unless you’re in your ‘nice-looking era’, and ‘what’s inside’ means something not quite decent.
Well, I think I need another pound of chocolate now.
“why do you elect such ugly people? ”
We don’t have a great deal of choice. I am not familiar with the physiognomies of Russian politicians, but, if, on the whole, they are much better looking than British ones, then they are fortunate. Mr Farage may be no oil painting, but he is lokks or lack of them are not unusual for a man of his age in the UK.
Kemi is fair-looking and still a youngish woman whilst Starmer doesn’t look like a man pushing mid-sixties TBF.
Mayhaps a lifelong blank & gormless expression, holds back the ravages, wrinkles & sagging, for the latter. Even if middle age paunch & puffiness is unavoidable.
Boris Johnson OTH looks like his younger self just opened the Ark of the Covenant, which would be a well deserved fate. For perhaps the most singularly repulsive prick of his political generation.
Ponder what kind of territory *that* covers.
Dark Lord Tonie and his “Mouth” Alister Campbell. Now on an endless worldwide grift & fixing tour and hosting his artificially inflated podcast, with that sneaking Gollum-looking little f*cker Rory Stewart respectively.
You have little choice? It’s surprising to hear this.
Okay, let’s agree that looks are not the deciding factor for a politician. After all, as long as he stays away from the piano, he’s good enough.
I’ll share another interesting thing. Now a new kind of art is emerging, it uses AI.
You can feed it a text description, and it will generate animation.
I present to your attention such animation – totem animals of different countries.
The UK is at the beginning of the video, and I must say I quite notice the similarity of the character with your Mr. Farage.
https://pikabu.ru/story/kak_neyroset_vidit_stranyi_v_obraze_zhivotnyikh_frantsiya_frantsiya_11895397
haha, Egypt and Cuba weren’t very lucky, imo, and Azerbaijan seems to be having hunger pangs
Should be bulldogs, not boxers for the UK.
Poodles would reflect the reality better.
Much more realistic, than those fantastic creatures – presidents as homeless
https://youtube.com/shorts/IKQnV6HkJEM?si=rrWcgLQHHgS5F4Ie
Doesn’t look like a computer game animation now, eh?
Shouldn’t Zelensky be playing a piano?
If anyone’s interested, here’s my local elections round-up (with the customary emphasis on the minor parties/ independent candidates). As our host has outlined, the big story of the night/following day was Reform UK making seismic electoral waves, resulting in them gaining close to 700 councillors and winning outright majorities on 10 councils. Conversely, the Tories lost all 16 councils that they were defending, whereas the Lib Dems gained three. Labour lost almost two-thirds of the seats it was defending, as well as Doncaster Council. The Greens didn’t win any councils but more than doubled their number of seats.
One of Reform’s biggest wins was Durham, which prior to 2021 had been Labour controlled for a century. Staggeringly, Labour were reduced to just 4 seats out of 98, but actually gained one in traditionally Tory Barnard Castle – thought I might need an eye-test when I saw that result (did yous see what I did there?), which came as a consequence of Reform & the Tories splitting the right-leaning vote. (The winning candidate also happens to be Victoria Wood’s brother.) Ex-BNP candidate Pete Molloy retained his seat in Spennymoor as an Independent, in spite (or perhaps because) of Reform leaflets calling him a Nazi.
Another big win for Reform came over the Pennines in Lancashire (my current neck of the woods if it’s any interest). However, a smattering of left-leaning Independents topped some of the polls in Preston, Burnley & Nelson, including former Labour councillors Usman Arif, Yousaf Motola, Mohammad Iqbal & Azhar Ali (who you may remember from last year’s Rochdale by-election). They all left the party over Starmer’s indescribably crass comments on LBC about Israel having the right to starve Gazans (a process which sadly now seems to be getting under way with no food aid being let in to Gaza since early March), and Labour’s position on the genocide in general.
They were joined by Almas Razakazi and veteran leftist Michael Lavalette who both won in Preston, as well as 18-year-old Maheen Kamran in Burnley. She caused a stir during the campaign after declaring that Muslim women should be entitled to their own spaces, which provoked the ire of Jonathan Hinder, the new Labour MP for Pendle & Clitheroe (hidden word round), who claimed that this was ‘Intolerable’. It’s completely legal under Labour’s Equality Act 2010, mate.
The TUSC put forward a slate of nearly 100 candidates but, as we’ve come to expect, did badly everywhere. As I may have mentioned before, since the financial crisis, more candidates have been elected to councils in England & Wales representing parties with the words ‘Idle’ & ‘Toad’ in their the names than the word ‘Socialist’. Galloway’s handful of Workers Party hopefuls also had a fairly disappointing night. By far their best result came in the by-election in Balderstone & Kirkholt ward in Rochdale, where Laura Pugh came third with over 16% of the vote.
On the far-right, the British Democratic Party and Kenny Smith’s new Homeland Party each fielded a handful of candidates who generally obtained 1-3% of the vote. In the Doncaster mayoral contest, Frank Calladine standing for the Brit Dems actually polled less than 1%, a far cry from the 8% he got 4 years ago as an Independent. UKIP (which under seemingly permanent acting leader Nick Tenconi I now class as far-right) sported 13 unlucky contenders, one third of them in Tamworth where stalwart Robert Bilcliff achieved their best result of the night with just under 3%. Britain First didn’t bother putting up any candidates this time, but the National Housing Party and the National Front (yep, it’s still just about going) managed one each in Warwickshire & Derbyshire to similar effect. Something tells me though that some of these outfits may be picking up one or two councillors who get kicked out of Reform for various shenanigans over the coming four years. As ever, time will tell.
Dislike of foreigners of other “races” can’t always be written off as “racist”. If said foreigners misbehave in some way or impose a foreign culture in larges swathes of your towns and cities, you may legitimately dislike it without being a “racist”. Here, it is not irrelevant to recall the so-called grooming (mass rapes) scandal. Again, it is one thing to meet Pakistanis, Indians, Moroccans, etc., in their own countries, where they will often be very nice to you, and will generally be welcoming, and it is quite another thing to have to endure certain “minority” individuals next door or next street who behave as conquerors or occupiers (Muslim Brotherhood and so on, and yes, I know that the Muslim Brotherhood is originally a creation of British intelligence). Craig’s analyses are always very well-informed, fine (intelligent) and interesting, but I do find the eternal “racism” put-down somewhat arrogant. One last note: the BSW (Wagenknecht) party in Germany does not say that any rejection, however motivated, of any form of immigration is racist (or “Nazi” !!) and wrong, quite the contrary, and thanks to them for that.
Well said, Christophe! The term “racism” does tend to be used in a simple-minded way, to control the simple-minded. I very much doubt if anyone at all is influenced to “hate” people purely because of their skin colour. Mostly, it’s a combination of religious and cultural differences, perhaps strengthened by unpleasant personal experiences.
People of different religious and cultural – and political – backgrounds can mix peaceably and get along well, but only if the mixing happens quite gradually. Ultra-rapid mixing, as we have been seeing throughout the Western world recently, is a recipe for war.
Yes a recipe for war is fortunately not the same as an actual war of choice taken to these parts of the world from which we then get refugees and immigrants and which the west excels at. The other factor to consider in your self righteous sort of attitude about values. The west has chosen to be the world moral leader of values and to decide whether these values should be upheld, even by genocide, and that has been the history of racist imperialism throughout recent history.
“People are wonderful. I love individuals. I hate groups of people. I hate a group of people with a ‘common purpose’. ‘Cause pretty soon they have little hats. And armbands. And fight songs. And a list of people they’re going to visit at 3am. So, I dislike and despise groups of people but I love individuals. Every person you look at; you can see the universe in their eyes, if you’re really looking.” George Carlin.
Agree Chris, but mass immigration can of course create racism. And the PTB know it of course, and exploit it, and divide us as such. Along with much of the MSM. As for Andrea Jenkyns, who I just posted about down the page a tad, it just occured to me that the reason the MSM mostly downplayed her comment about putting illegal migrants in tents – or didn’t cover it at all – is because many of them themselves dissemble racist rhetoric regularly (so as to try and influence people’s attitudes), so they’re not going to criticise her and condemn her for what she said.
Just about all animals have a powerful territorial instinct, and for obvious reasons, survival, and homo sapiens are at the tail end of hundreds of millions of years of evolution, and although the instinct isn’t necessary for most of us to survive in the modern world, it is still something that is quite strongly at work in many people. And add to that the propaganda, which the very same people are susceptible to…
“…one of the rare occasions where Johnson actually told the truth.”
======
Yes.
A statement might be true, even though Boris Johnson says it is true.
Hi Craig,
This is such an interesting read, thank you for your sharp well researched analysis and personal thoughts combined. Can you please explain exactly what you mean by deep-state? I don’t wish to blithely assume I know without detail and depth of understanding.
I doubt you will get a reply from Craig this far down the thread, unfortunately.
May I recommend a book – The Establishment, by Owen Jones. It was out a few years ago, but still highly relevant.
Thanks for the reccomendation. I will take your advice.
If I remember correctly the book title was “The Establishment and How They Get Away With It.’
It’s written by Owen Jones. A duplicitous character. Tread carefully.
Craig, regarding “all of the documentation on his involvement in the Assange case, the Savile case, the Janner case, and other high-level paedophile cases while he was Director of Public Prosecutions was allegedly destroyed by the state,” both links are broken (404)
As regards the failure of the Workers Party in Runcorn, I can’t find data for the constituency but the town of Runcorn has only 1% Asians (including Hindu and Sikh). Workers Party is mainly led by White people but it’s voters are overwhelmingly Muslim, as were at least 55% of its candidates in the last General Election. They’re an ethnic party although they do oppose Islamism. And they also seem like a vehicle for George Galloway, like Respect was previously. A pity, because their policies would be very acceptable to most ex-Labour voters.
Excellent and enlightening analysis by Craig, but I disagree with him about Jeremy Corbyn. Anyway, I just learnt about this a bit earlier in an article JVL reposted yesterday:
Reform’s Andrea Jenkyns revealed their true colours in her first speech as the new Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, when she said illegal migrants “should be put in tents”. All the other candidates walked off stage in disgust midway through her speech.
I can’t stand Laura Kuenssberg (for obvious reasons), who was presenting the BBC coverage of the local elections and the by election as it transpired, and so much so that I really couldn’t watch it, not even for a few seconds, so I was reduced to watching it on GB News who were covering the elections as well as it turned out. But many of the results weren’t announced until the Friday afternoon anyway. The point I’m trying to make is that I didn’t at any point see any footage of Andrea Jenkyns saying what she said AND the other candidates walking off the stage, as such, which you’d have thought would get major coverage by the MSM.
Anyway, as soon as I read that bit (on JVL) I did a search to see how widely it was reported in the MSM, and it appears to have been reported by some of them, but they don’t really make much of it – ie it’s not the subject matter, or the headline, of the articles. But in the process of doing a search I came across a video of what happened (posted by the Daily Mail), which is what I was also looking for. So I checked it out and, as such, was surprised to find that it has only had 3k views during the four days it’s been up. It also only has 63 comments at the time of writing/typing, most of them undoubtedly either posted by the Mail’s own shills, or Reform’s shills. Here are a few examples:
Bye bye – well done Andrea
Just shows how childish our politicians are
Thats why she won and they lost .she is listening they are not well done .come on reform
Let the traitors walk…
Most of these mps have business interests in the supply and upkeep of the illegal immigration scam.
I didn’t really know anything about her – except that she used to be a Tory MP up until last year – until I read a BBC New srticle about her just now. Prior to reading it (and since reading about what she said in the article JVL reposted), I was thinking she must be a really ignorant, stupid person, but she’s not, which makes it all the more scary. But then, that said, the country is run and controlled by fascists, and their fascist media buddies, as with most countries of course. Anyway, here’s a link to the video on the Mail’s youtube channel:
Candidates walk off stage after Reform mayor Andrea Jenkyns’ migrant tents comment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8UAPxePkpA
And here’s the BBC News article (posted on May 2nd):
Andrea Jenkyns: First Reform mayor has knack for bouncing back
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm25qjj4284o
Neither the Assange Case link nor the Savile Case link is working.
The Assange one doesn’t seem to be in any of their 4 pages of Assange archives, only https://www.declassifieduk.org/how-the-uk-security-services-neutralised-the-countrys-leading-liberal-newspaper/ rather than leading prosecutor…
How is Assange doing btw, recovering?
Likewise, *media* doesn’t ring a bell.
But then, good sources are always elusive, as we all know.
Yesterday it occured to me that I haven’t heard anything by Farage and Co – ie Reform – in respect of Gaza, and had it mind, as such, to do a search and see what I could find, which I just this minute got round to doing, and the following was top of the list of results, which I guess tells us all we need to know (from Feb 5th):
Nigel Farage says Donald Trump’s plan to ‘take over Gaza’ sounds ‘very appealing’
The US president said today he wants to take over Gaza and turn it into the “Riviera” of the Middle East.
The Reform UK leader was asked what he makes of these plans during a news conference on Wednesday.
He replied: “I love that notion”.
Mr Farage added: “The thought that wealthy, wonderful thriving place with well paid jobs, casinos, nightlife… it all sounds very appealing to me.”
In other words, he doesn’t give a shit about the people of Gaza and the genocide Israel is in the process of committing, which is what I assumed once I first thought about it, and now confirmed. I don’t know how many people voted for Reform altogether last Thursday, but I doubt any of them primarily did so because of Starmer’s support for Israel, and the Tories support prior to last years election.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/politics/nigel-farage-donald-trumps-plan-take-over-gaza-very-appealing/
And the only other thing I found was this video clip on the GB News’ youtube channel posted on Feb 21st last year, in which he says that ‘many in the Labour movement, particulary on the Muslim side of politics, are speaking out about the way Israel is behaving and calling it a genocide which, of course, in any historical sense, is a complete and utter outrage’.
The video has been viewed over 34k times, and has 645 comments (and presumably tens of thousands were watching GB News when he initially said it). It is of course tantamount to holocaust denial, and makes his position on the issue crystal clear of course:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt0GStLi-CQ
On the other hand, Farage has received flak in the past for speaking about the disproportionate power of the Jewish lobby in the US, which is just the reality of course:
Nigel Farage: ‘Jewish lobby’ has disproportionate power in the US
‘Farage’s clumsy use of the terms Israel and Jewish lobby interchangeably and his reference to their ‘power’ has crossed the line into well-known antisemitic tropes,’ says Board of Deputies
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/us-jewish-lobby-nigel-farage-power-anti-semitism-ukip-leader-a8031191.html
And another article mentioning this in passing by Dave Rich led me to this, on X, posted five days ago:
It is remarkable how readily the radical end of Britain’s pro-Palestinian movement has adopted the antisemitic language of America’s ZOG-obsessed far right; and yet there is silence about this on the wider left. If neo-Nazis held that banner there would be outrage.
https://x.com/daverich1/status/1918320003633561651
A lot to think on, for sure.
Another more prosaic reason is that the population is sick of the Duopoly’s endless lies and failure.
The country has been going through the neo-shit-lib version of the Brezhnev stagnation, for longer than the Soviet original. With far less to show for it.
People just don’t *care* anymore about the two main party’s, policy, leadership or even marginal successes (or failure). Within the current groundhog-day consensus of eternal Thatcherism-Blairism. Foisted on the nation, by ever less “worthy” successors.
Because the old myths of fully automated luxury globalism, aren’t fraying at the edges, they’re fraying at the centre…
Every 5 years or so, one cheek or another cheek of the same arse takes the reins of power in UK. The only constant is the targeting of the poor with benefit cuts, the favouritism towards big business, the rich and their endless corruption and constant refusal to do anything about immigration despite a pledge to be tough on it.
Joe public has had enough and Farage et al provide the only platform for them to channel their anger – much to the disgust of the ruling class. One after another the leaders are branding Reform far right – in effect branding those who voted for reform far right without directly stating it. They are demonising those whose support the need to gain back. A support that by the demonising they will lose for ever.
I do not now support Farage, never will I but I do support the right of any voter in the country to support them and cast their vote in his favour. That part of the democratic process seems to upset those standing to lose power and seats to Reform.
What would happen I wonder if every Labour held constituency could have their MP recalled with the justification that they lied in their manifesto. Would reform clean up? Would Starmer be forced to end his parliament and call a GE.
For lack of calling a GE, Starmer can now proudly announce that as a good yankee lapdog he has been granted an art-of-the-deal trade agreement with Master Donald.
Tariffs on Range Rovers sold in the US to be reduced to 10 percent!
But of course hormones-fed American beef is getting free access to the British market.
It’s a win-win, thanks to the very special relationship…
“Every 5 years or so, one cheek or another cheek of the same arse takes the reins of power in UK. ”
Yup, one flavour of Tory is replaced by another. Reform looks to be a brand new flavour, but still Tory.
With regards to the last quote posted above, one can only say that ad hominem attacks are always to be decried, that we must insist that any commentator play the ball and not the man, even when the man in question is a neonazi. The truth is the truth no matter who iterates it, and the plain fact is that the US government has long been the puppet of the zionists, fighting sundry wars against the regional foes of Israel at the expense of trillions of dollars and millions of people. Indeed one can state that the US government, in the manner of the medieval cartographers, sees Jerusalem has the centre of the cosmos.
Sorry, Craig. You lost me at the first use of the word “racist.”
Hi. ‘Racist’ seems to apply to only white people, I assume. Are there not other communities that baulk at another community setting up next door; new smells, habits, attitudes etc. Would, say, the Pakistani community appreciate a sudden Polish migration.
It seems obvious the anger is a useful by-product to create confusion, anger and then specific controls [ i.e. labelling ] to ‘protect’ the country against, in this case, the far-right.
The main benefit is all that easy money for hotels, who obviously got hit by Covid, to have season-free incomes, paid for by the taxpayer, at the same time as freezing the paltry winter-fuel payments.
People want to know why illegal human trafficking seems to be protected while demonstrating against is considered far-right or racist.
It was Patel and Braverman who pushed the Rwanda scheme – were they called ‘racists’? Perhaps that’s why they were chosen to push it.
Vance Packard’s ‘ A Nation of Strangers ‘ illustrates the problems of migration within the USA, not foreign immigration but Americans moving en masse to different areas, changing the landscape and infrastructure and often as not moving on years later, leaving behind their changes. Wholesale economic change, lack of infrastructure capacity etc are the things that are overlooked when simplistic terms are employed. He also points out that Real estate firms are well up the fall-out from a new community near an old one and the profits to be made there.
“Hi. ‘Racist’ seems to apply to only white people, I assume.”
It does, despite brown people and yellow people being quite capable of hating other ethnicities with a similar fervour, not to mention those religions which take racism to a different level and consider non-members to be an inferior type of humanity.
So, 2TK Starmer has negotiated a deal with the USA whereby we get shafted and we then have to buy the cigarettes after the shafting from Donny – how was it for you ?
Just waiting for Trump to be declared the next pope so that we can all kiss his ring – pucker up brits.
He NAMED the new Pope. That’s even better. Free trade with the Vatican.
Donald had said he would have big, big, very big news this week. And he delivered.
Conspiracy theorists call this the “Deep Church”…
If you are wondering why Europe’s leaders are nearly wall to wall these rabid pro war genocide ignoring nutcases then listen to this conversation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGEE0O6PM1Q&ab_channel=GlennDiesen
When you listen to the level of control the US exerted and exerts getting the ‘right’ people into all the key positions of power going back at least two decades now it explains the political wasteland we see in front of us across Europe.
The repressions in Romania, the attempted assassination of the guy in Slovakia, German Intelligence declaring the main opposition party as extreme right, Le Pen banned… and many other examples… it is appearing everywhere.
When you look at all of this now, does anyone doubt for a nanosecond that they were heavily interfering not just with the 2014 referendum but also events afterwards with the Alex Salmond stitch-up. There is absolutely zero doubt IMHO. We’ve been robbed on so many levels it is stunning. And it is not just Scotland, we are just one of many other victims.
Indeed. Late last year Joe Biden was awarded Germany’s highest honour after he destroyed the German manufacturing economy.
https://www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Berichte/EN/Frank-Walter-Steinmeier/2024/241018-meeting-biden.html
In today’s European politics, that’s how right the ‘right’ people need to be.
It goes back to at least the end of WW2. The USA placed actual Nazis into prime positions in the German government and it’s security services, and they did the same with Japanese war criminals in Japan. World domination by the hegemon started, at least, 80 years ago. And, the UK sold out many decades ago.
Kit Klarenberg (investigative journalist from the Grayzone) did an especially revealing interview where he states right at the start that what Starmer will do next is whatever his handlers in MI5/6 and the MoD tell him to do, that Starmer is ‘not really in power’. (The guy Klarenberg is the journalist who was detained at Heathrow using the terrorism legislation, similar to the owner of this blog.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75RlpJKgGec&ab_channel=GeorgeGalloway
So if that is true then you have to ask yourself who or what really is ‘in power’ in the UK right now. If Starmer is ‘their’ guy and always has been then it would certainly explain a lot of what we have seen (so far). Desperately stripping UK pensioners of winter fuel allowances and disabled people of benefits to send to ‘their’ man and ‘their’ war in Ukraine. This is after they had effectibvely quadrupled energy costs as a direct result of their misdaventures in … guess where. To then cut the winter fuel allowance is homocidal IMHO. It is so disgusting it is beyond belief.
Furthermore Klarenberg reveals that the disastrous Ukrainian invasion of Kursk was a UK run and inspired operation!
It also means that the UK is essentially a Police State. The ‘Police’ (the final boss ones) have contrived and concocted a front man to take control of the country. What is that if not a police state, achieved by stealth.
What is happening in (especially) the UK but also across Europe is really sinister at this point. I find it hard to believe what I am seeing. It is also so sad as well seeing what has happened, is happening, to our countries and our freedoms.
This takeover became particularly obvious with the skripal events. Ukrainian links and all driven by the security services. It’s also worth noting the prime roles played by the security services during the covid fiasco both in the UK and the USA.
Banana republics are always run by the military.
Mac
For whom was the “disastrous Ukrainian invasion of Kursk” disastrous?
For the “neoNazi regime” in Kyiv?
Or for the democratic government (sic) of the Russian Federation?
The former it was a Pickett’s Charge tier fiasco, in a loosely analogous situation.
A desperate and horribly costly northward lunge in the wider context, of a war with a far greater power.
That years in is now going very badly wrong, for the smaller, poorer & more internally divided side.
Urban Fox
May 9, 2025 at 11:44
Thanks Urban Fox but my question was directed to Mac.
I see, you weren’t seeking enlightenment, you just wanted to try and prove someone wrong. Perhaps dispense with the questions next time, if you already know the answer, otherwise people might get the wrong idea.
The Kursk operation always looked more political than military. Ukraine lost the war with its failed attempt to push through with tanks to Melitopol, cutting off Crimea. It was obviously a conclusive failure as they’ve never tried anything like it again. The recognition that the war was lost was starting to take hold across the West and most importantly in the US. So they needed something to distract from that and Kursk was it. In political terms, it was successful as it bought Kiev quite a while. It appears that, contrary to the picture painted by our spooky sources, Russian tactics are aimed at minimising their own casualties so no knee-jerk reaction was forthcoming and they took their time in driving them out again.
I voted for Reform even though I do not agree with there immigration policies.
But due to there Net Zero policies. I think if Net Zero is carried forward to its logical conclusion it will be very bad in lots of ways.
Already it is causing problems in the car industry most of the car industry in the UK is foreign owned and they could just as easily make or assemble the cars in other countries if Net Zero makes it uneconomical to make cars in the UK.
Energy costs will also increase if Net Zero policies are followed as well as making blackouts more likely.
I think immigration is mostly positive immigrants have relatives at home they want to support so work hard to support them.
But the local population don’t have the same incentive to work hard.
Cutting the local population’s living standards will give them an incentive to work hard, or at least the ones who survive.
Voting for a party when you don’t agree with what is by far its most important policy is an odd thing to do.
I haven’t studied car production but surely there will be far fewer cars on the roads regardless of Net Zero because the epoch of that kind of economic “demand” from the working class is over.
Cf. home ownership (or “ownership”) at previous levels. It’s over. People are having to deal with the prospect of life as tenants of private landlords when their parents or grandparents left that behind in the 1960s. Similarly soon many will have to do without the hope of buying themselves a car even on a loan.
Most illegal immigrants don’t have a car. They can’t afford one. Much of the native population will be in the same position.
“I haven’t studied car production but surely there will be far fewer cars on the roads regardless of Net Zero because the epoch of that kind of economic “demand” from the working class is over.”
For capitalism to work the workers have to receive lower wages and buy more stuff at the same time.
“For capitalism to work the workers have to receive lower wages and buy more stuff at the same time.”
Nope, capitalism works fine when workers receive wages high enough for them to afford to buy the products they are making, as proved by Henry Ford. Capitalism, like almost everything you can think of, works less well when people get greedy and selfish.
” most of the car industry in the UK is foreign owned and they could just as easily make or assemble the cars in other countries”
If it was UK owned they could still just as easily make or assemble the cars in other countries, and would if it increased profit.
Generally good analysis but out of date in respect of Labour having union paymasters who pull the strings, although this along with other ‘red scare’ tactics keeps getting trotted out. Labour is now a truly Conservative Party which thinks it just has to let business have its way and all will be well, having learned nothing from 2008.
‘Of the £21.5m in cash received by the party in 2023, just £5.9m came from the trade union movement, compared with £14.5m from companies and individuals – a huge increase on the previous year, and indeed more than in the three previous years of Keir Starmer’s leadership combined. As trade union contributions have dipped slightly, from around £6.9m in 2020 and 2021 to £5.3m in 2022, donations from businesses and individuals have soared: they totalled £2.3m in 2020 and rose to £3m in 2021 and £7.6m in 2022 before nearly doubling last year’
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/labour-conservative-party-donations-2023-spending-analysis/
On the whole the Unions appear to have lost the plot. They seem less interested in helping workers and more interested in jumping on the latest bandwagons and signalling their f*cked up virtues. Totally emasculated. In their current incarnation the Unions are no threat to the blob, they’re only a threat to the working classes.
When I first was involved in trade union activity in the 1970s I saw my role as fighting for fellow workers, just as the company fought for its profits and shareholders. Usually some sort of compromise was reached before the next conflict came along.
However when I clashed with trade union bureaucrats around the year 2000 it was pointed out to me that the legal wording had changed: as a trade union shop floor rep my job now was ‘to regulate relations between members and the employer.’ From being a team captain I was now being asked to be a referee. Not long after, I was debarred from holding any position within my trade union.
” Labour is now a truly Conservative Party which thinks it just has to let business have its way and all will be well, having learned nothing from 2008.”
I would say rather that Labour has now become a branch of the all-encompassing Tory Party (“Tory” coming from the Irish for “looter”). Labour are now Red Tories and the Conservatives are Blue Tories. If they didn’t learn the lessons of 2008, 2016 will be along next year so they can resit the class, as the saying goes.
The latest voter intention poll by pollster BMG shows
Reform UK 32%
Labour 22%
Conservatives 19%
and approval ratings for party leaders (stats that a lot of prediction heads pay great attention to) as follows
Nigel Farage (Reform UK) + 35%
Kemi Badenoch (Conservatives) – 5%
Genocide Starmer (Labour) – 39%
Fieldwork 6-8 May 2025, 1525 pollees
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/reform-record-10-point-lead-over-labour-farage-3685725
This is what you get when you don’t talk about real racism and real xenophobia and instead fly transsexual rights flags from public buildings and teach school pupils there are many more than two “genders”. Basically the (supposed) “common sense” vote goes to the extreme right, also known as white power.
ALL the major parties are ‘extreme right’. Reform is no different from labour, or tories, or lib-dems, or greens. Anyone who thinks these parties are different from each other hasn’t been paying attention.
‘It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.’ George Carlin
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/964648-but-there-s-a-reason-there-s-a-reason-there-s-a-reason
Sad that people assume it’s the liberal obsession with sex that has decided these results – not Starmer’s support for proxy wars, genocide and the elimination of anyone who doesn’t contribute directly to the economy.
A very interesting and informative take as always. My own feeling is that paradoxically, the hyping of Farage by the entire British media recently, including the ‘progressive’ Guardian, is actually another symptom of the failure of Brexit and the death of meaningful democracy in the UK since 2016. At the root of it is that the British establishment seems unable to deviate from Johnson’s hard Brexit plan (whether down to United States foreign policy supremos or the British elite or a combination); therefore to keep up the pretence of its ‘success’ their journals are required to make it look as if its PR man, Farage, is so popular that he is about to win the next general election, even under different colours, if necessary. The man seems as ‘controlled opposition’ as you can get, as far as I can see. Note also that no British politician seems allowed to represent the half of the country who voted Remain, which suggests in itself that the Brexit vote was a seizure of power, with ‘democracy’ as the window-dressing. As to “dark days”, there have been very dark days with the 2019 and 2024 general elections, Johnson’s assumption of power and prorogation of Parliament, the genocide by the Israeli government, and the authoritarian covid measures – but I agree that the powerbrokers and their media may get even worse as British people increasingly see through their lies.
Tom. IMO, the problem is that when the people voted for brexit it was never delivered. You’ll recall the complete farce as we approached exit day and business leaders asking the government what the plan was – there wasn’t one. Cameron caused the chaos trying to get some political points, most people didn’t want a referendum but when it was offered the majority took it. Cameron and the rest of the blob were caught with their pants down, and they panicked, and then tried to renege on the vote. There has been no plan ever to seriously deliver what was promised. Farage always was, and is, a sideshow. He essentially wants to run the tory party and will always screw over anyone who votes for him. Starmer is busy trying to get the UK back in the shitshow that is the EU because it is a bigger pond for lowlife grifters like him. So, IMO, it’s not that brexit failed, it was never delivered , and was sabotaged from day one. However, if people think closer ties now with the failing and corrupt EU is going to be good for the UK I’d say they’re going to be severely disappointed.
“Starmer is busy trying to get the UK back in the shitshow that is the EU because it is a bigger pond for lowlife grifters like him. ”
Which, I think, is the reasoning behind the change from the primarily trading bloc that was the EEC to the political entity that is the EU. Who wants to be head of a trading bloc when they could be head of something that could become the United States of Europe?
Talking about a police state, as someone up the page was earlier…The headline to a Guardian article posted this morning asks the question:
Why did 30 Met officers kick the door down at a teenage tea and biscuits meeting in a Quaker house?
I assume it was to intimidate them, and to frighten off other people from getting involved with the group (and other such groups), and their protests against the genocide by Israel in Gaza etc. I mean it’s not as if it was some secret clandestine meeting taking place, and as one of the young ladies who was at the meeting said:
“I think had they rung the bell we would have let them in, obviously … They didn’t have to raid us. It’s six young women in a room, in a place that we hired, that we publicly advertised, and they could have just sat in and listened to us. I don’t really see any conspiracy in that.”
And some of the officers were armed with stun guns! Imean WtF was that about. I’m tempted to say these people – whoever came up with the er… operation, and planned it, are mentally retarded and deranged. I mean how do you get to figure that you’ll need thirty officers, with some of them armed with stun guns ffs. Can you imagine the organisation involved, and then all of them being briefed before they set off.
The reality is that anyone was free to attend the meeting, so why not just send along a young plain-clothes officer to see what they’re up to, and record proceedings, and take it from there if need be. I mean the police have never held back from infiltrating groups and organisations before so as to spy on them. Hundreds of them in fact!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/10/police-raid-london-quaker-meeting-house-very-worrying
In the final analysis it’s the police – and the military – who stand between us and the PTB turning the country into a full-blown fascist dictatorship. We’re already well on the way!
European leaders on a joint visit to Kyiv have issued an ultimatum to Vladimir Putin: sign up to an unconditional ceasefire by Monday, or face increased sanctions and weapons transfers to Ukraine. The five then had a virtual meeting with other leaders on progress being made for a so-called “air, land, maritime and regeneration force” that is planned to be part of a peace deal. [Guardian]
These coalition of the willing clowns are willing to confront Russia without the money, military means or consent from their electorates.
The latest BMG poll of Westminster voting intention indicating that Labour will only hold 12% of its current seats at the next general election – losing 363 seats and holding onto only 48. They have to realize the proxy war between NATO and Ukraine has been lost. Putin, the winner will dictate terms. These leaders futile attempts to change what has already been decided on the battlefield will only result in further loss of Ukrainian territory with the accompanying loss of life. The only true thing Trump has said since his election is “this war should never have been started” unfortunately it now looks like he will be owning it. It must be recognized that the secession of the 4 Oblasts plus Crimea while being contrary to the Ukrainian constitution [if such was still in place after the 2014 coup] did not breach International law, i.e. the right of all peoples to self determination. This was confirmed in the ICJ decision in the Kosovo case, which Putin referred to as part of his reasoning when accepting and welcoming those areas into the Russian Federation.
Zelensky and the Europeans delusionaly think Ukraine can restore its sovereignty over the pre 2014 Ukraine, this is delusional and can only result in increased warfare with the possible use of nuclear weapons. Make no mistake this is existential for Russia, they know it and will use any means to prevail. I think Trump knows this to, I hope his judgement is sound and will not follow the belligerent Europeans down the warpath.
Putin has essentially said ‘bring on your sanctions, we’re prepared’. At some point the ‘coalition of the witless’ are going to run into the Brick wall of reality, then the zionist and the granny botherer and their clowns will be exposed for the incompetent fools they are. In the meantime, we all will suffer because of any sanctions imposed. That’ll show Russia !
Stevie Boy
What they are inferring ( or even whispering) is that ‘ officially ‘ no gas/oil is being used in Europe – but ‘un- officially ‘ it still is.
So, the extra sanctions are for cutting off or preventing the un- official energy supplies.
How The Coalition of the Not So Willing Now will get electricity to build these weapons factories if they agree to that on pain of sanctions from the US I really don’t know.
Here’s a thought though?
I bet Donald and his MIC mates will say -‘ We can do that for you on a 30 day invoice ‘
‘You will have to wait but we can do it. ‘
Like The Wall we were going to build last time.
Meaning – eventually.
“I bet Donald and his MIC mates will say -‘ We can do that for you on a 30 day invoice ”
85 years later it will be Lend-Lease all over again. Now remind me when the UK finished paying for the last one…