Zelo Street

Thursday 7 December 2023

Tories In Meltdown

Our free and fearless press can hold back the dam no more: the party for which most titles have been only too willing to shill is beginning a mid-air break-up as the stresses on its airframe have gone well beyond its design limits. The Tory party is in the process of spiralling out of control.

This brings one benefit: there is little problem in deflecting from the lamentable testimony before the Covid inquiry of their favourite, disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who swore an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and proceeded all too predictably to talk well, but lie badly.

Even seeing Bozo digging himself ever deeper into a hole of his own making, some out there want him back as party leader, conveniently forgetting what happened the last time he was in Number 10. BBC Newsnight’s political editor Nick Watt “has spoken to an ally of Boris Johnson who outlined a 3-year plan to re-install him as the Conservative leader”.

And there’s the rub: Tories fighting not only among one another, but fighting against reality. Bozo’s ratings were down the chute while he was still leader. Were he to be reappointed, the lying to the Queen to prorogue Parliament, trying to rewrite the rules to save Owen Paterson, lying about the Northern Ireland Protocol, lying about Jennifer Arcuri, lying about the Covid pandemic, the infamous VIP Lane, and all the other lying, would be revisited.

But that is where the Tories are at, with another fantasy Rwanda plan cobbled together by James Cleverly and Rishi Sunak, the latter now a LINO (Leader In Name Only), to the background of former failed Home Secretary Suella Braverman carping pointlessly from the sidelines, and immigration minister Robert Jenrick resigning because the Rwanda plan wasn’t cruel enough.

Exactly how anyone would know that Jenrick, an appallingly immodest man with much to be modest about, had resigned was a potentially challenging proposition - until the exchange of letters between Himself and Sunak was made public. Jenrick was typical of the New Conservatism.

As Alex Taylor reminded us, it’s “A man whose moral compass allows him to walk into a centre welcoming traumatized displaced children and ordering it to paint over its colour murals [and] is light years from the decent British values I for one grew up with”. Cat Neilan added context: “Tory MPs discussing all options from letters, to confidence vote - to snap election. Jenrick is ‘another Jenga block removed’, says one”. Another creep removed, more like.

Even the new Rwanda plan ran into problems as soon as it was disseminated. Cleverly, like his predecessor Ms Braverman, had to annotate it with the caution “I am unable to make a statement that, in my view, the provisions of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill are compatible with the Convention rights, but the Government nevertheless wishes the House to proceed with the Bill”. Then came another blow.

Paul Brand of ITV broke the bad news: “Rwanda government threatens to pull out of the deal if it does not adhere to international law. Hugely problematic - and potentially humiliating - for govt if its partner country decides the deal is too toxic”. Hundreds of millions for nothing. That’s not good enough.

That the pressure on the Tory party was coming from the right was confirmed by Adam Bienkov of Byline Times telling “Conservative MP Mark Francois says it is ‘deeply worrying’ that Robert Jenrick has resigned and accuses James Cleverly of ‘ducking’ questions from MPs”. François (note cedilla under the c) is one of those with a merely transient hold on reality.

Even the Daily Mail is today in despair at the Tory infighting, wailing plaintively “Will the Tories EVER give up fighting each other and start fighting Labour?” But the penny never does drop with the right-wing press: what we see now is an inevitable consequence of what they urged upon the electorate. It is why so many overpaid pundits will wield so little clout come the next election.

The Tory party’s uncontrolled flight into terrain has not occurred. Not yet.

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Wednesday 6 December 2023

Rupe Pays Out Millions AGAIN

Once again, a major news story - as in actual news, not recycled Government press releases, Royal family cheerleading, covering yet more Tory arses, kicking migrants or otherwise demonising hate figures - has not made it to today’s front pages, demonstrating once again that the power of the press is not just in what it chooses to print, but what it chooses not to print.

Chris Huhne - hacked ...

That story concerns the Murdoch mafiosi, and so the rest of those who scrabble around the dunghill that is Grubstreet instinctively know to fall in line: if it affects the Murdoch press, and the Murdoch press says nothing, then the rest must also say nothing. Creepy Uncle Rupe may be 92, but no-one doubts that he and his family are still strong. Best follow the herd.

What our free and fearless press is not telling you is that, as Press Gazette has reported, “A group of celebrities have received ‘substantial damages’ and public apologies from News Group Newspapers (NGN), publisher of The Sun and previously News of the World, over unlawful information-gathering practices. Among the claimants are Spice Girl Melanie C, comedians Catherine Tate and Keith Allen and radio presenter Chris Moyles”.

There was more. “The publisher also paid damages to a victim of the London terror attacks on 7 July 2005, Davinia Douglass. She claimed that the publisher gathered information about her by deception, blagging and voicemail interception”. That last is most interesting - here’s why.

Ms Douglass was “The woman in the gauze mask”; she suffered burns in one of the July 7th 2005 London attacks. One of those helping her, first responder Paul Dadge, gave the press his mobile number, but instead of calling him to clarify the story, some hacks, or someone on their behalf, hacked it instead. Dadge, as campaigning group Hacked Off reported, “received undisclosed damages from News Group Newspapers … [in 2011]”.

Moreover, there was one more payout yesterday: “Former Lib Dem cabinet minister Chris Huhne was also reported to have received a substantial six-figure sum for damages and legal costs. Huhne was jailed in 2013 after swapping speeding points with his wife and lying about it”.

... but not by the Sun, honest

Hacked Off are on the case here, too: “He accused the publisher of unlawfully targeting him in a bid to intimidate him into silence over his calls for the publisher to be investigated over the hacking scandal”. You can read Chris Huhne’s statement HERE. If they all got six-figure payouts, those, together with the legal fees, will have been well into the millions of pounds.

As Huhne put it, “Searching for political kompromat, spying on government ministers for commercial gain, and knowingly telling repeated lies to maintain sales and ratings should all be utterly unacceptable in any responsible media organisation, yet are the stock in trade of the two Murdoch media companies”.

Also, as Professor Brian Cathcart has told in an article for Byline Times, “[Huhne’s] case is significant in several respects besides the questions it raises about the role of managers. It is the first of three brought by senior Lib Dem politicians (Sir Vince Cable and Sir Norman Lamb will follow) alleging hacking and other illegal information gathering that was driven by political rather than journalistic motives”. Two more big payouts on the way, then.

“Huhne presented evidence … of an intensive campaign against him that continued when he was a Cabinet minister in the Cameron Coalition Government, and sitting on ministerial committees such as the National Security Committee. He presented evidence that these activities continued at least until 2011 - five years after the company … claimed it had been halted”.

His claim alleged illegal information gathering on behalf of the Sun. The Murdoch mafiosi denies that paper indulged in such practices, but has paid out one heck of a lot of money to prevent cases coming to court. As former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger put it, “Yet another insight into the media empire Rupert Murdoch presided over. Criminal behaviour, intrusion, lies and intimidation were part of the operating system”. Management by fear.

Enough for the rest of the press to leave well alone. Real Mafia behaviour.

Tuesday 5 December 2023

Migration - Tories Screw Up UK Again

Amid all the faux outrage over news that net inward migration to the UK was well into the hundreds of thousands, and not likely to drop to the five-figure level any time soon, few in and around our free and fearless press stopped and thought that, far from being a drag on the economy, those migrants were the only reason that economy had not fallen into recession rather earlier.

They come here, work hard, earn money, pay taxes, spend in the shops, and by doing so keep growth going - just about. But here, for the Tories and their desire to appease their right wing, a problem enters: most migrants now come mostly from outside the previously hated EU. Whisper it quietly, but most of those coming to the UK are in the Not White category.

Not, of course, that any of the papers slobbering over news of a much more restrictive immigration policy were playing the race card, you understand. After all, the policy could not be racist as the bloke who introduced it was himself Not White. That much is true, but those to whom the new rules are now being broadcast by the press certainly are. So how is it being pitched?

As ever, it was the Murdoch Sun (owned by a US citizen) and Rothermere Daily Mail (owned by a non-dom) in the vanguard, the latter proclaiming “BIGGEST EVER CLAMPDOWN ‘WILL SLASH MIGRATION BY 300,000’ … Salary threshold for foreign employees hiked to £38,000 … Curbs on care workers’ families … Now Cleverly flies out to seal Rwanda treaty”.

There was more. “JAMES Cleverly last night vowed ‘enough is enough’ as he unveiled tough reforms designed to slash net migration by 300,000 a year”. And the Sun? “Rishi Gets Tough On Migration … ACCESS DENIED … Plan to slash influx by 300,000 … PM to [the Sun] Enough is enough”. Neither title, nor any of the other right-wing rags, asked themselves the obvious question.

For the less well-off, that would be to ask how the NHS, and wider social care sector, would continue to function if the source of so many nurses and other carers were cut off. And for the well-off, which means most of the obscenely overpaid hacks and pundits feeding us this bullpucky, that would be where their cleaners, Au-Pairs, delivery drivers and baristas would come from.

Just to keep a few bigots sweet. That is how out of touch, out of ideas, and out of courage, the present Government has become. How it has to churn out unworkable and cruel policies in order to appease the press, which in turn churns out the propaganda that helps Tory poll numbers remain in the high 20s, rather than going down the chute into the teens, and then oblivion.

Indeed, quoting from a report from the Resolution Foundation - a body that gets an A rating for transparency from Who Funds You - Tom Bradby of ITV News has mused “Picture a country going backwards, where workers haven't had a decent pay rise in 15 years, public services are on the verge of collapse, and the gap between rich and poor grows year on year”. Do go on.

“That is how Britain was described today in a bleak and damming assessment of its economy. The failure to achieve all but negligible growth has left the average worker a simply staggering £10,000 a year worse off. And we're now lagging way behind countries we used to think of as equals. In Germany, middle income households are 20% richer than their UK peers”.

There was more. “We'd be here all night if we listed the failings identified in the 290 page report. But put simply, in almost every sector, the UK is just not productive enough”. Sam Freedman has added “the UK is the *only* country in Europe where second generation immigrants outperform non-immigrant students. (And first generation don't do much worse)”.

He wasn’t finished: “our immigration is *actively improving* our education system (due to peer effects) … It's also making our system look more equitable because immigrants outperform their socio-economic status”. Put directly, immigration is not merely keeping the economy afloat, it’s also helping the UK in other ways. And the Tories are going to stop all that.

They fouled up the UK only partly. So now they intend to finish the job.

Sunday 3 December 2023

Telegraph UAE Sale Hypocrisy

After the banks effectively called time on the Barclay family’s ownership of the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, both Daily and Sunday versions of the paper, together with the increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine, were put up for sale. But who would want to own the Tel, which had been trading on its brand for years, and become a propaganda sheet?

Ultimately, as the Tel itself reported in today’s edition, “Ownership of the Telegraph is set to pass to RedBird IMI, an investment fund led by Jeff Zucker, the former CNN boss, and backed by Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a member of the UAE’s Royal family”. Oh no! Takeover by Scary Muslims™! Quick, get out the excuse generator! Dump on the Forrins!

And so it came to pass that Tel columnist Janet Daley, who turns 80 next year and may well be on her way out if that change of ownership goes through, penned “The Telegraph’s proposed takeover by a foreign state must not be allowed to happen”. Do go on. “The US media company RedBird IMI, funded by the rulers of Abu Dhabi must not be permitted to take ownership of this newspaper. That statement should be obviously true”. Why not?

“The only point worth considering here is that in a free society no government - including the country’s elected one - should own a news media outlet. The power wielded by a state must be, always and without qualification, separate from the presentation and analysis of information in the public domain. That principle has been one of the distinguishing differences between tyrannies and democracies in the modern world”. And there was more.

“Even media outlets financed by public funding mandates like the BBC, or Channel 4 which is owned by a corporation that belongs to the government but is funded by advertising, have managerial and editorial independence”.

That’s in the “debatable” category, especially the Beeb. But do go on. “Are there really serious grown-ups who believe that social media has made newspapers - and real journalism - redundant, rather than more urgently needed than ever to hold the tidal wave of fakery and falsehood up to the light?”. For the Tel, that’s For Some Value Of “Real Journalism”. Carry on.

“To those naive people, let me explain that a professional newspaper operation is not only subject to all the old legal constraints of libel and contempt, but a whole new battery of Ipso guidelines on accuracy and ethical procedure, overseen by inhouse enforcement officers, in which its trainees are rigorously instructed”. Shall we see how that plays out in the real world?

Let’s have a look at the Tel’s Wiki page. “In July 2014, the Daily Telegraph was criticised for carrying links on its website to pro-Kremlin articles supplied by a Russian state-funded publication that downplayed any Russian involvement in the downing of [MH17]”. Then there was the lack of coverage of that Swiss tax-dodging scandal to placate advertiser HSBC.

Peter Oborne had linked “the refusal to take an editorial stance on the repression of democratic demonstrations in Hong Kong to the Telegraph’s support from China”. What was that about “editorial independence”? And as to that “accuracy and ethical procedure”, ah well.

Anti-Semitism, anyone? Remember the George Soros front page splash? Two Tel pundits, Allister Heath and Sherelle Jacobs, have played the “Cultural Marxism” card. Accuracy? Covid-19 misinformation. Climate change denial. Using the Muslim-bashing Henry Jackson Society as a single source? The “Meghan cook book equals ISIS” story, and the defamatory attack on scout leader Ahammed Hussain - damages, apology and costs - refer.

Foreign Governments dictating content. Agenda driven stories. Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Islamophobia. And something else you never saw in the Tel while the Barclay family owned it - any mention of the Barclay family. Add to that the best the Tel can do to defend itself is an endorsement from Liz Truss, the comedy Prime Minister who was too useless even for the Tories.

If the Tel is sold to RedBird IMI, the standard of its journalism might even improve. It couldn’t get much worse. As for independence - yeah, right.

Saturday 2 December 2023

Bozo Covid Grilling And The Press

And so, with the certainty of night following day, the appearance before the Covid Inquiry of disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson draws near. He will be lightly grilled for two whole days next week, to the relief of those who thought it should have happened rather earlier. This gives his pals in our free and fearless press a problem.

The hearings are broadcast: editors and proprietors cannot stop their readers from tuning in, or seeing excerpts of Bozo fouling it up on TV, although his pals at Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”) will do their best not to mention the grilling, or spin it in their new host’s favour. And they can all forget the tactic that has been used so far to distract the public.

That tactic has been to make sure they have a suitably large dead cat to sling on the table: last week’s stiff feline was elevating Omid Scobie’s book Endgame to the status of lead story, followed by righteous indignation at his discussing the Royals, which the press regards as their exclusive preserve. This was effective in heading off criticism of Michal “Oiky” Gove.

Gove’s testimony, and indeed that of Matt Hancock, was therefore mostly kept away from those who are still to change their votes to Labour, the Lib Dems and Greens in disgust at the Tories’ uselessness. But that dead cat has now been expended. The chance of securing another of that calibre are slim, even though papers like the Mail will even recycle press releases if need be.

Hence that paper thundering “Children as young as seven on pro-Palestinian rallies, reveals report … THOUSANDS SKIP SCHOOL TO GO ON GAZA MARCHES” this morning, having taken a report by right-wing lobby group Policy Exchange and dishonestly recycled it. But that won’t be enough when the Bozo grilling begins. People will tune in. They will see him louse up.

What, then, to do? Simples. An alternate reality has to be established before Bozo makes his appearance. This will avoid his wanting the bodies to pile high, erase any mention of Herd Immunity, and redefine those parties in Downing Street as excusable actions by people under the terrible stresses imposed by steering the country through the Pandemic.

Bozo will be presented as The Great Helmsman; readers will be reminded that avoiding even worse death figures was down to him. Whatever his flaws, only he was capable of such leadership, the kind of excuse given to a sceptical public in the last years of Francisco Franco and António de Oliveira Salazar (and no doubt Mrs T’s pal Augusto Pinochet, too).

You think I jest? The Murdoch Times has started out down that very road this morning with the headline “Johnson: My Covid decisions saved lives”. This heap of bullpucky is then tempered by a statement of the bleeding obvious: “But mistakes were made, ex-PM will tell Inquiry”. So what’s the story?

“Boris Johnson will admit next week that he ‘unquestioningly made mistakes’ during the pandemic but insist that the decisions he took ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives … He will argue that he had a ‘basic confidence that things would turn out all right’ … He will insist that all three lockdowns came at the right time and in the process the Government saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives”. Of course he will.

This is, let us not drive it around the houses for too long, an exercise in mutual survival. Bozo met a host of editors and proprietors before a second lockdown did not happen. If his decisions are judged wrong, and they were influenced by those meetings, the press will also get it in the neck. Better to paint Bozo as the great modern Churchill, flawed but indispensable.

Our free and fearless press has its credibility on the line next week. As do Rupert Murdoch, the Barclay family, the Rothermeres, their CEOs and senior editors. On the face of it, it looks like covering for Bozo because he’s one of their own. But it’s also about exonerating them from influencing decisions that cost, as one estimate puts it, another 90,000 lives.

Bozo will appear before the Covid Inquiry not so much as a former PM, but more of cover for the Fourth Estate. And that’s not good enough.

Thursday 30 November 2023

Piers Morgan Ultimate Desperation

Ratings. They drive the reputation of broadcasters, the attention of advertisers, the fragile egos of presenters. Without good ratings, shows languish, are avoided by those advertisers, and ultimately get cancelled, whoever hosts them. So it is understandable that broadcasters and their hosts will go to great lengths to improve those all-important ratings.

And what's more, Ron

Those great lengths can lurch all too easily into desperation. Add in the evidence of creepy obsession, and we arrive at the latest effort by former Screws and Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan to get the ratings of his supposedly “Uncensored” show, on Murdoch property TalkTV, off the noise floor. As so often, his efforts mean slagging off the Duchess of Sussex.

Morgan thought he had an in with the Royals when Megs, who he had met once in London, became engaged to Haz. But it looks very much as if her future husband’s experiences at the hands of our free and fearless press, of which Morgan is a paid-up establishment member, became known to her, and the former editor soon found himself blanked. And it got worse.

He threw a mardy strop live on ITV Good Morning Britain, walking off the set when confronted about his Megs obsession, and very soon after that was told his services were no longer required. He blamed Megs. It was, as for so many in the media, someone else’s fault. Except it wasn’t.

Now, with the news that a book by Omid Scobie about the Royals called Endgame has allegedly named two people who “had concerns” about the skin colour of Haz’n’Megs’ first child (but only in the version published in the Netherlands, you understand), everything has come together for The Great Man. He dislikes the Duchess obsessively. He detests Scobie. He could now do them both over and score more ratings: he would name the names.

And so it came to pass: “Either Omid Scobie or the Sussexes come forward with evidence of racism, or this will be Endgame for his career” boasted The Great Man. He named the names. Perhaps his ratings improved. But here the same problem he had on GMB going up against the Beeb enters: the way in which the ratings were improved cannot be replicated on a daily basis.

Make his pay performance related? Good idea Mate

Worse, he could not refrain from abuse. “Scobie’s obviously lying (again). I’m told the two names in the Dutch edition match the names of the alleged ‘racists’ cited in the Meghan/Charles letter exchange post-Oprah, which Scobie details in his book with info he can only have got from Ms Markle or her pals”. His paper hacked on an industrial scale. Calls liar on others.

Do go on. “The ongoing malevolent guilt-by-association smearing of the entire Royal Family as a bunch of racists, ignited by the Sussexes with zero evidence, and now fuelled by their lying lickspittle [Omid Scobie] is disgusting. I'll be addressing this on tonight’s [show]”. Malevolent smearing just about sums up Morgan’s pursuit of the Sussexes. And there is more.

“Comical to watch lying Sussex lickspittle [Omid Scobie] say he’s never written a draft of his book naming the 2 supposed royal ‘racists’. How else did the Dutch version get printed with those explosive details? He wouldn’t know the truth if it slapped him round his Botoxed chops”. Yes, there goes the ad-hominem abuse again. Then came his direct smear of Haz’n’Megs.

“The silence from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex is increasingly damning. They normally rush to denounce [no citation], and sue anyone who reveals details of their private correspondence .. why is [Omid Scobie] getting a pass for revealing such damaging information? Did they give it to him?”. Yesterday’s Daily Mail recycled: they must denounce Scobie, or they become complicit. Both Morgan and the Mail seek more attention; both fail to find it.

What is not told - so I will - is that this is a desperate throw of the dice: Morgan has been paid an eight-figure sum for his services, the ratings aren’t coming, and Rupe and his team are getting impatient. 8.7 million Twitter followers, yet few tune in. He’s been reduced to interviewing Kyle Rittenhouse. A white creep who got away with murdering BLM supporters.

The low moaning sound in the noise floor that is The All New Percy Moron Show was for a time, but not for all time. Just rejoice at that news.

Wednesday 29 November 2023

Covid Probe Bad News? Royal Dead Cat

The inquiry into the handling of the Covid-19 Pandemic is turning out, for the Government, to be a campaign developing not necessarily to their advantage, not that many newspaper readers will know. Disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson comes out of the grillings particularly badly; his current successor Rishi Sunak looks little better.

Actual real world news? Maybe not

This is, of course, before either of them gives evidence in person, with the impression being given that Bozo may have already perjured himself with his previously submitted statement to the Inquiry. So the press has had to look elsewhere for its headline deflection. The Mail made the March Against Anti-Semitism front page news on Monday, but a problem has since entered.

An attendance of 60,000 was claimed for the march, which the Mail inflated to a nice round 100,000. However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, analysis of the crowd has since concluded that the number taking part may have been no more than 2,000. Luckily for the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker, Monday’s Mail front page had another item.

And that was the ever-reliable Royal story, as in championing Brian, his eldest son, Camilla, and Kate, while mercilessly slagging off the Sussexes and anyone associated with them. Omid Scobie, who is considered to be close to Haz’n’Megs - as in, closer than all the no-marks in the London media establishment who invent Sussex stories - has a book out.

Moreover, not only is it a book about that part of the Royal Family that the Mail supports, it has also had excerpts published in France, which means the press having to find someone who speaks French in order to accurately translate it. Scobie has warned against inaccurate translation of the excerpts, but the hunger of the press pack for Royal goss and dead cats prevailed.

And by yesterday, with its release in Australia, Endgame, in which, as Wikipedia tells, “he aims criticism the British royal family as an institution as well as at individual members of the family, especially the Princess of Wales”, was now available in English. So there was no need for the Mail to pretend it was steadfastly against anti-Semitism, and off came the gloves.

This is who you have to hate, Mail readers

While Michael “Oiky” Gove appeared at the Covid Inquiry yesterday, Mail readers were digesting the thundering instruction of what to think. “Royal Book Bombshell … Omid Scobie claims ‘cold’ Princess of Wales is a ‘part-time Royal’ … belittles Charles as ‘inept’ and says William ‘stonewalls’ Harry … Last night appalled Royal sources said new book is simply … POISONOUS”.

In piled the Daily Brexit, still called the Express, in support: “JUST NASTY! Author Scobie takes a swipe at ‘part-time’ Kate”. The increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph sniffs “Scobie’s shameful Royal hatchet job”. But that was merely the Hors d’Oeuvres before a suitably pungent Entrée, as this morning’s Mail has gone Full Screaming Batshit Dacre on its readers.

“SCOBIE BOOK PULLED FOR NAMING ‘ROYAL RACIST’ BY MISTAKE … Sales halted in Holland [they mean the Netherlands] after Dutch version appears to identify family member [they don’t actually know] who allegedly asked about Archie’s skin colour”. Gaza? Nope. Ukraine? Not as such. Cost of living crisis? Nah. Covid Inquiry? Never heard of it, honestly.

There is even comment from the Mail’s least appealing Glenda, Sarah “Vain” Vine, who tells “If Harry and Meghan don’t denounce this poison, we can only assume they endorse it”. Yes, it’s their fault. Who was it that Haz was taking to court for alleged illegal information gathering? But seriously, this shows anyone still in any doubt that the Mail is not a publication majoring in news.

The Royal Book story only manages fifth spot on the BBC website this morning, and that may well be driven by fear of the press establishment rounding on the Corporation for not giving the story that they have deemed the day’s most important due prominence. But this charade of journalism does have one benefit, even if only one person enjoys it.

Sales of Endgame will soar as a result. Which may hurt the monarchy that the Mail is trying to support. Be careful what you wish for, and all that.

Sunday 26 November 2023

Oh Tommy Tommy - You’re Nicked

Just after 1400 hours today, the Metropolitan Police put out a Tweet telling “Officers working as part of the policing and security operation for the March Against Antisemitism have arrested a 40-year-old man on the Strand. He refused to comply with a direction to disperse under Section 35 of the Antisocial Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act”. There was more.

“We have been in frequent contact with the organisers of the march in recent days. They have been clear about their concerns that the man’s attendance, and that of those who were likely to accompany him, would cause fear for other participants. The same view has been expressed by others”.

No surprise that the individual nicked was Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson. He protested that those arresting him were “an embarrassment to the Police”, and claimed he was at work. But he knew what was going to happen, having already told his followers “Met Police attempting to intimidate me and stop me from reporting on the antisemitism march happening today in London”. He’s doing journalism! It’s THE TROOF!

Also, the Met had a Section 35 dispersal order in force for the area around the march. Lennon knew this as they had told him, and he had Tweeted it out. So the inevitable happened. “The [Met Police] are literally attempting to police 'freedom of the press' and arrest me for causing 'alarm and distress' For reporting on today's antisemitism march and criminalise my journalism”.

He became more strident. “Am I about to be arrested for supporting the Jewish people and Israel? Am I going to be arrested for journalism? For hating antisemitism? For being an ally to Jews?” No, he was going to be arrested as the march organisers didn’t want him there.

Then came the Being Nicked moment. “Attacked by police & tear gassed”. Or maybe not tear gas. “they send the whole squad, pepper spray you, and drag you away”. Would Sir have been resisting arrest? Then came the Tweet from Urban Scoop, where Lennon’s videos appear. A mildly threatening Tweet.

“Press enquiry: [Gideon Falter] did you order the [Met Police] to bar notorious Zionist and Jew supporter [Tommy Robinson] from reporting on and supporting and [Campaign Against Antisemitism] today in London? I look forward to your response”. I bet he does. In the meantime, others out there on the far right piled in to register their support for The Great Man, not least has-been Laurence Fox, pro-am thug Paul Golding, motormouth Hatie Klopkins, “Father” Calvin Robinson, and sensitive soul Doug Murray The K.

But for members of the political and media establishment, there were no dispersals or arrests. For them, the world was as excellent as ever. One such was disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who showed that past excursions across the anti-Semitism line were no barrier to a Buller Man rocking up to bolster the numbers.

As Gary Dunion pointed out, “In Johnson's novel '72 Virgins' the character Sammy Katz has a ‘proud nose and curly hair,’ and the eyes of an ‘unblinking snake.’ He ‘relied on immigrant labour,’ kerbcrawled for ‘a bit of black,’ and sent his son ‘pathetic presents, every five years, of low-denomination bills.’”

Also there, so I’m told, was self-promoting TalkTV host Julia Hartley Dooda, who had no problem writing a Muslim bashing piece for the Express, and recently said she stood by it. Anti-Semitic caricatures and Muslim bashing are no problem for paid-up members of the media and political establishment.

And all is not lost for Lennon either: the arrest will have raised his profile just at the right moment. Why so? “48 hours after being given my voice back on [Elon Musk]’s platform and after our re-emergence on the streets of the UK I received letter from the attorney general who is pursuing a contempt of court case against me for the documentary SILENCED which was leaked … They want to send me to prison for two years”. He also helpfully included a link to his legal fund. Will he skip the country? Who knows? And who cares?

Stephen Lennon is not an innocent journalist. And he may soon be off the streets for a year or so, grift or no. Just rejoice at that news.

Friday 24 November 2023

Oh Tommy Tommy - Ireland Shit Stirrer

There was a stabbing incident yesterday in the City of Dublin. Five people, including a 5-year-old child, were injured, some of them critically. So far, so sad to hear, but what came afterwards appears to have taken the authorities in the capital of the Republic by surprise, as last night brought a wave of violent rioting. The Guards have so far made 34 arrests.

The BBC reported “Taoiseach … Leo Varadkar said about 500 people were involved in the riot … hours after the stabbing, rioters destroyed 11 police vehicles, while 13 shops were badly damaged and more were looted during the clashes with police. Three buses and a tram were destroyed and several police officers were injured during over three hours of sustained violence”.

There was more. “The Dublin Fire Brigade (DFB) said a fire truck that attended the stabbing scene was later attacked … divisional organiser Geoff McEvoy said: ‘That truck was actually among the DFB trucks and ambulances that were first on the scene giving paramedic assistance to the victims of that stabbing that afternoon … Then at about 18:00 … one of the first calls that truck responded to was a petrol bombing of a refugee centre.’”

Refugee centre? The BBC again: “Ireland's police chief, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris, said there had been an ‘element of radicalisation’ to the riot. The ‘extraordinary outbreak of violence' had come after ‘hateful assumptions’ were made based on material circulating online in the wake of the stabbings”.

"You've been telling lies about me"

Material such as? “It is understood that included false claims that the attacker was a foreign national. Sources have indicated to the BBC that the man suspected of carrying out the attack is an Irish citizen in his late 40s who has lived in the country for 20 years”. And so we come to Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, and his current pinned Tweet.

“On the back of the news of a horrendous knife attack in Dublin leaving three school children hospitalised and two adults injured trying to protect them, we have now heard through various sources the attacker was not an Irish national, he is Algerian … this is why we went to Ireland to document the dangers of uncontrolled undocumented mass immigration”. Well, well.

And once again we encounter the asymmetric world of Stephen Lennon. He’s the one who responds to someone expressing their opinion by rocking up on their doorstep in the dead of night and claiming “You’ve been telling lies about me”, but his own opinion can be readily converted into something that he calls THE TROOF. Also, it appears he is the one who has been telling lies here.

Leo Varadkar - trolled by Lennon

Lennon has also been trolling the Taoiseach (although, yes, in his world, only others do trolling): “While [Leo Varadkar] virtue signals calling out the men of Ireland (who are justifiably outraged) 'far right' and 'racist' and 'hooligans', he doesn't listen to his people. He never has [opinion converted into fact again] … He caused this problem [more opinion converted into fact], now he's going to have to deal with it because the Irish won’t take this lying down”.

And a threat to the elected leader of another country just to round it off. Added to that were “Ireland you need a revolution against these traitors, the longer your borders remain open the less freedom & safety you will have” and the unsubtle “Mass deportations are needed for the survival of Europe”.

Lennon lying for profit - AGAIN

Any more ranting? Here it comes. “Like the Algerian who just stabbed 3 little girls. Weak cowardly men like this are the reason our families are no longer safe in our homelands”. Lennon also talks of “the planned invasion of Ireland”, another slice of opinion which he has converted into fact, and which is therefore THE TROOF. Except it’s just more paranoid Muslim bashing.

Should Lennon rock up, as threatened, at next Sunday’s march against Anti-Semitism, and should it all kick off (it would, naturally, be someone else’s fault), the authorities in Ireland would have good cause to make Lennon Persona Non Grata. He is using the stabbing, and his return to Twitter, as a means of rekindling his previously dormant career. And one thing is certain.

Whoever suffers as a result of his actions - it won’t be him. No change there.

Thursday 23 November 2023

Autumn Statement - Press v Reality

The title for this post was decided upon not this morning, but yesterday evening before any front pages were available, although the increased tax burden of the Autumn Statement was known. This is mentioned to show just how predictable our free and fearless press is on occasions when the herd decides to circle the wagons around a beleaguered Tory party.

Spin it so hard it breaks

The reality - conceded by the BBC headline - is “Autumn Statement: Jeremy Hunt cuts National Insurance but tax burden still rises”. This was confirmed by the FT telling “Tax burden surges despite Hunt cuts”. SPOONERISM ALERT! But for those out there on the right, Tories increasing the tax burden could not be admitted; their readers might take fright at the dose of reality.

So it was that the Murdoch Times proclaimed “Hunt eases tax burden”. Over at the Sun, the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole, still pretending to be a real journalist, was the name on the by-line as the paper frothed “Mini-Budget Boost In January … NEW YEAR’S WAHEY!” And there was more.

HUNT CUTS HUNT CUTS HUNT CUTS

“£450 off National Insurance payments … £18 a week rise in the state pension … and duty frozen on all your party booze!” Only later is it conceded that the tax burden is going up, not down. This sleight of hand was also utilised by the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker.

The Daily Mail could hardly contain itself. “Biggest tax cuts since the 1980s … 27 million to save average of £450 on National Insurance a year … £11 billion tax breaks for business - the largest boost in modern history … State pension to raise by 8.5% as triple lock is honoured in full … Threat of benefits axe to get jobless back to work … But with total burden still vast … LET’S HOPE IT’S JUST THE START”. Burden still vast, but its increase not admitted.

No he doesn't

The Mail’s sister paper, free sheet Metro, was also on message. “Chancellor fires election starting gun … HAPPY N. I. YEAR”. But the headline does admit that “Growth forecast falls”. It was left to Sophy Ridge of Sky News to introduce the subject of “Fiscal Drag” - that millions were being dragged into higher tax bands, or into income tax itself, because tax thresholds were not being raised in line with inflation - conceded also by the Spectator’s editor.

Yes, even Fraser Nelson was admitting “What Hunt didn't mention: the stealth tax rises … More than £40bn to be raised by failing to uprate tax thresholds in line with inflation … 4m more low-paid workers liable for income tax … 3m more caught in the 40p rate … Some 400,000 more in the 45p rate”. When the Speccy is not prepared to join the propaganda game, that game is up.

Election starting gun is right

Millions of workers facing a tax rise. And there was worse to come, as George Eaton of the Staggers warned “The UK is still set for the biggest fall in living standards since the 1950s and the highest tax burden since the war (as OBR confirms). A terrible climate for a government seeking re-election after 13 years”. Torsten Bell of the Resolution Foundation put some numbers on that.

“The chart I'd be most worried about as a Tory MP? The disaster of what's happened to household incomes: 3.5% fall between the last election and the coming one is the largest reduction in real living standards since ONS records began in the 1950s”. Andrew Baisley of the NEU added “OBR point out that Sunak plans real terms cuts to schools every year up to 2029”.

Get pissed and you might not notice reality

And not just schools, as Polly Toynbee of the Guardian observed. “The OBR says the Chancellor's measures will result in a £19bn reduction in spending on public services, after accounting for inflation. Far worse cuts to come”. The slow puncture of Brexit now beginning to bite, coupled to all those years of needless austerity. Then more unwanted news arrived.

That will be the immigration numbers: a big increase in inward migration year-on-year to 745,000. All those people who are mainly not white, without whose contributions the financial situation would have been markedly worse. The Tories pandered to the bigots when promising they would get immigration down to the tens of thousands. They haven’t, and won’t.

Hunt cuts. Hunt cuts. Hunt cuts. But can’t cut the looming General Election.

Monday 20 November 2023

Guido I’m A Celeb Claim WRONG

One group of media observers never learns, and that is the cohort willing to take the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog on trust. Rather too much of what emanates from them is right-wing propaganda - such as recycling press releases from the so-called Taxpayers Alliance and the rest of the Tufton Street gang - and there is a significant amount of pro-Tory spin. And then there are the flat-out gaffes.

WRONG

Or, as some might call them, talking well, but lying badly. Today has brought a particularly fine example as the Fawkes folks have attempted to polish the usually unflushable turd that is former Brexit Party Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, only to find themselves covered in more than confusion.

Nige is the star turn on this year’s series of I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, with ITV for some reason ponying up well north of the cool million mark in order to secure his attendance Down Under. And rather than give him a brief mention and point out that he’s a spiv and a congenital liar of no known principle, The Great Guido has sung The Great Man’s praises.

So it was that readers still awake were told at 1059 hours this morning of “Farage’s Jungle Challenge Debut”, with those chez Fawkes gushing “Farage’s debut on I’m A Celebrity last night didn’t fail to entertain, as he was made to stick his head in box of snakes to win tokens. Farage wasn’t concerned about the challenge, joking he’s had experience with snakes before … in the European Parliament”. Laugh? I thought I’d never start.

But there was, sadly, more: “The GB News presenter said he hoped those who hate him will hate him a little less after the show, admitting he could understand why Hancock joined the show last year. Though not sure even a reality show could clear Hancock’s reputation”. Yes? Yes yes? Yes yes yes?

And then came the howler, made that much worse as it had already been rumbled an hour before. “Over 10 million viewed the show last night making it ITV’s highest rating of the year, and up by over 1 million viewers on last year’s launch. So much for the boycott from the left”. Yeah, take that Rotten Lefties™! Nige’s ratings are bigger than yours!! Nyah nyahdy nyah nyah!!!

But, as Captain Blackadder might have observed, there was only one thing wrong with the viewing claim: it was bollocks. We know this as another of those making the 10 million plus claim, Brexiteer Martin “Dipshit” Daubney, had sneered “I’m A Celebrity viewing figures peak at 10.3 million … ITV’s highest rating of the year … 1 million more than last year”. There was more.

“All thanks to Nigel Farage. Some ‘boycott’”! He even helpfully added a link to the ITV press release. But the bad news was not long in coming, as the Tweeter known as Otto English broke it to Daubs gently: “This press release is from November 2022”. Super TV had the right story.

“RATINGS [I’m A Celeb] returned to 6.95 million viewers last night - the lowest launch rating since SERIES ONE in 2002 … It’s down 2.2 MILLION on last year’s opener”. And the time stamp on that Tweet? 0959 hours. That’s a whole hour before The Great Guido. It appears that Daubney then deleted his effort. And the time on the Otto English Tweet? 1019 hours.

So have the Fawkes folks deleted their post? Still live, and still unaltered, at 1520 hours, or five hours after Otto English. Heck, even the BBC has got the story, telling “The return of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! was watched by an average of seven million viewers on Sunday according to overnight ratings … That's just over two million fewer than watched the first episode last year, which attracted 9.1m”. That’s been up for more than an hour.

And even Adam Brooks, aka Essex PR, held up his hands, admitted he got it wrong, and conceded that the viewer numbers were down on last year. But while Twitter, X, or whatever Muskrat is calling it this week, is having a field day at “Dipshit” Daubney’s momentary embarrassment, the Fawkes rabble does not appear to have been called out. Not yet, at any rate.

Good of them to remind us of their gold standard journalism. Or maybe not.

Saturday 18 November 2023

Elon Musk And Anti-Semitism

Racism, and more specifically anti-Semitism, are not confined to the UK and its free and fearless press: the disease is equally, if not more, virulent in the USA, and within that country’s own media class. Accusations of anti-Semitism, and the consequences following from it, have caused ructions around Twitter, X, or whatever Muskrat is calling it this week.

So much so that Musk has now told his 163 million followers “The split second court opens on Monday, X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company”. A real bear with sore head moment. Who’s he suing? “Their board, their donors, their network of dark money, all of them”. Why so?

Ah well. A Tweeter had posted “Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them. I’m deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realisation that these hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don’t exactly like them too much. You want the truth said to your face, there it is”.

And it would have gone no further than the odd murmur about batshit conspiracy theories, except that Musk intervened to reply “You have said the actual truth”. It got worse: his absolutist approach to free speech, or his interpretation of it, added to that endorsement, spooked advertisers.

Kyle Griffin of MSNBC had an early example: “IBM says it has ‘zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination’ and has ‘immediately suspended’ all advertising on X following a report that the platform ran IBM ads alongside pro-Nazi material”. FREEZE PEACH can also mean lost ad revenue.

CEO Linda Yaccarino of Twitter/X/Whatever tried to push back. But by now, Media Matters was on the case, and their Senior Fellow Matthew Gertz reminded her “Ma'am, your boss is describing posts that reference ‘hordes of minorities’ as ‘the actual truth’ and criticizing ‘Jewish communities’ for promoting ‘hatred towards whites.’” The ad losses were not confined to IBM.

MMFA’s CEO Angelo Carusone had the bad news that “Apple just announced they're pulling their ads from from X/Twitter [which] is very significant for 3 reasons: 1) X needs the App Store. It's very hard/nearly impossible for Apple to fairly enforce App Store rules when they're one of biggest advertisers. Now the conflict is gone”. His other two reasons were even worse news.

“2) Apple was a very big spender (one of top advertisers) and even more relevant was one of few companies that increased spend over the past year … 3) X/Twitter would often point to Apple's presence as evidence that the platform was brand safe. It's going to a lot harder for them to slow the advertiser losses without Apple's presence to point to”. OUCH!

And as Musk dug himself in deeper by frothing “Many of the largest advertisers are the greatest oppressors of your right to free speech”, Matt Binder had even worse news: “you can now add … Disney … Paramount … Warner Bros to this list of companies that just suspended advertising on X / Twitter after Musk’s recent endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory”.

Not long after Rupert Murdoch claimed that all the Egyptians he had met were white, and complained about the “Jewish-owned press”, someone prevailed upon him to put the Twitter feed down. Musk should have done the same a long time ago. Alternatively, he could have listened to his colleagues and discovered that his views were, shall we say, not quite mainstream.

As has been pointed out, “Henry Ford. Ezra Pound. Charles Lindbergh. Kanye West. Elon Musk. There’s no ‘genius’ that excuses this endless parade of toxic antisemitic nonsense”. Gertz has added better news for those of us besieged by Twitter adverts: “The good news is that at this rate, soon regular X users won’t have ads in their timeline either”. Still Musk refuses to listen.

You can’t sue your way out of a hole. But you can stop digging.

Friday 17 November 2023

Sun Writer Palestine Rant Fail

The eventual admission that the far right were the source of almost all the violence in London last Saturday, after Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, told his followers that they should support the National March Against Antisemitism, to be held in the capital on November 26, was something to behold. Now the Murdoch Sun has intervened.

Why might the public not take this august journal seriously?

Yes, the paper whose owner once complained about the “Jewish-owned press” is now calling out peaceful protesters that want to see an end to the round the clock rocketing, bombing and shelling of Gaza by the IDF for being supporters of Hamas and/or anti-Semites, while trying to lean on the far right and prevent them from rocking up a week on Sunday for a bit of afters.

Why the Sun is intervening thus may be that the title, and its management, still believe that the Super Soaraway Currant Bun of yesteryear, with its daily circulation of over four million, is still out there, still capable of telling the population what to think, and still able to bend events to its will. On the weekend of the 25th and 26th November, it will discover the new reality.

That reality is a circulation of well below the one million mark, a credibility shot through by past episodes of falsehood and misinformation, and a public whose support for a ceasefire in Gaza remains unshaken by gaslighting, smearing, bad faith actors, propaganda, and the failure of a flailing and desperate media class to impose themselves on the proletariat.

Still, let’s consider what The Sun Says this morning: “Tommy Robinson and EDL are weaponising identity of British Jews - they’re as dangerous to us as leftie anti-semites”. Ah yes, that anti-Semitism on the left that is rather more talked about than discovered. Author Noa Hoffman talks of “an army of bad-faith actors weaponising my identity and tearing into its core”. Do go on.

“The devastating war in Israel has put my community, the British Jewish community, in the spotlight. With that has come a tidal wave of racist hatred so ferocious I’ve had to try hard not to lose my mind … On the Left, massive pro-Palestine rallies have been littered with some of the most dangerous people in the country”. What makes them so dangerous?

The flag of Palestine. Not of Hamas

“They proudly shout ‘From the river to the sea’ - a chant calling for Israel to be wiped off the map”. A chant YOU CLAIM makes that calling. Others interpret it to be about freedom for the Palestinian people, which they do not enjoy, either those in Gaza, or those in the West Bank. But carry on. “They don’t believe my community has any right to a homeland”.

Israel, the last time I looked, existed, and has a right to do so. No serious opinion is pretending otherwise. Ms Hoffman is also not doing her credibility any favours by claiming “Jewish people are removing any symbol of their identity to avoid physical harm and harassment” when there is a significant Jewish contingent at rallies in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Nor does she, and her paper, do their reputation any good by deploying headlines like “Thugs tracking me down” and then rowing back with “my boyfriend messaged me to check my address and phone number are sufficiently private … He worried about violent thugs tracking me down”. Nor is she helping her cause by talking, more than once, about the EDL.

Lennon disbanded the EDL some years ago. Granted, he keeps suggesting he might bring it back, but he hasn’t. And while she is sound with her response to him - “I want nothing to do with him … I don’t want his fake support, I detest it” - he and his pals will just feed on this kind of article to paint themselves as victims, brushing it off as an attack on their free speech.

Noa Hoffman, her paper, and those of like mind are between a rock and a hard place. The Sun spent years smearing anyone on the left as anti-Semites in order to get their preferred politician into Downing Street - someone who has used anti-Semitic caricatures in his written work - that the same left will likely ignore any pleading for support. The media class has shot its bolt.

Pro-Palestinian rallies are overwhelmingly peaceful. Smearing them will get the Sun nowhere. And the far right won’t take any notice. Sad, really.

Thursday 16 November 2023

Labour’s Ceasefire Shame

The civilian death toll resulting from the IDF’s round the clock rocketing, shelling and bombing of Gaza has now, when those missing and assumed buried under the rubble of apparently randomly targeted buildings are factored in, passed the 15,000 mark. That’s 15,000 killed in less than six weeks. 15,000 non-combatants without the means to defend themselves.

Yet most of what Robin Day rightly and memorably called here today and gone tomorrow politicians did not seem overly concerned about such details, and that has included the Labour leadership, one of whose representatives rocked up on TV this week and declared that calls for an immediate ceasefire were “performative”. Another one arguing in his spare time.

There is nothing “performative”, to use the happy characterisation of another career creep, about wanting to end the death and suffering resulting from pumping the equivalent of more than two Hiroshima bombs into a densely populated enclave, including the use of white phosphorus, and fragmentation rounds, the kind that tear through flesh and amputate limbs.

The Government mindset was no better, as Grant “Spiv” Shapps showed: “Voting for a ceasefire is essentially voting to give Hamas the green light to commit further terrorist atrocities. If Britain had been attacked on October 7, and we knew exactly where the murderers were, would any MP seriously be voting not to go after them?” Did we flatten West Belfast? Away with you.

One Labour MP supportive of a ceasefire found the Tories sniggering at her across the chamber. A few of The Blue Team did, though, vote for a ceasefire, but rather more Labour representatives - 56 of them, including several from the front bench who stood down in order to do so - registered their dissent, along with the SNP, several Lib Dems, and Green MP Caroline Lucas.

One of those Lib Dems was Layla Moran, who had just received the news that one of her extended family had been killed in Gaza. Still, as Philip Proudfoot observed, “Labour’s amendment today calls for a ‘humanitarian pause.’ They’ll suggest it’s ‘sensible’ and aligned with the international community … But EVERY head of the UN humanitarian agencies is calling for a ceasefire … Labour is gaslighting us”. Centro-Sensiblism again.

As for our free and fearless press, the only reason the right-leaning titles even mention the ceasefire vote is because of Keir Starmer’s discomfort in losing several of his front bench team. Their main focus is dishonestly claiming that the Tories’ Supreme Court Rwanda reverse was down to The Forrins.

It’s as if pointless culture wars are more important than the destruction, and mounting death toll, in Gaza. Another example of Palestinian lives not being of equal merit with those of everyone else. What, though, was motivating the Labour leadership to show so little empathy with those being bombed, rocketed and targeted with all those fragmentation munitions?

The Oh What A Giveaway moment came from the singularly unpleasant Luke Akehurst: “There's a certain post-colonial arrogance to British MPs thinking they can tell the elected government of another democracy that it has to stop fighting to defend its people after the worst terrorist atrocities since 9/11. The former mandatory power should stay in its lane”. Two things here.

The IDF is not “fighting to defend its people” by pulverising Gaza into dust and recklessly murdering a five-figure number of civilians. And Two, a vote in the Commons is not an instruction to the Government of another country. It is an expression of solidarity and empathy. It is not an attempt to tell the Israeli Government what to do. Akehurst is indulging in sophistry and spin.

But people like him have the ear of the Labour leadership, for better or worse. People like him who respond to the use of free speech with the mildly threatening demand “Name and CLP?” People who appear to conflate Israel with “The Jewish People”, which the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism calls an anti-Semitic trope. But he believes in Israel, so that’s all right, then.

Meanwhile, more defenceless civilians are being killed and maimed while the Labour party makes the calculation that they’ll win the next election anyway.

Wednesday 15 November 2023

So Farewell Then Rwanda Plan

This week is shaping up to be a very bad week for the Tories and their hangers-on in our free and fearless press, but a very good one for those who would rather Rishi Sunak and the rest of his less than talented cabal either shape up and stop fighting pointless culture wars, or ship out.

What is not being admitted by The Blue Team and its coterie of client journalists is that the current swathe of what Supermac called “events, dear boy, events” is opening up cracks in the Tory edifice which are slowly but inexorably breaking the party apart. Today’s addition to those “events” is, like Monday’s sacking of a Home Secretary, down to the cult of SUELLA and the inevitably messy end of the terminally inept Braverman reign.

And one part of that reign was the supremely cruel plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, where they would be “processed”, then not allowed to return to the UK. The one and only flight carrying those effectively deported eventually left with none of them on board. The Gammonati, their dog-whistlers in the press, and Ms Braverman, were incandescent with rage.

The Appeal Court then found against the Rwanda Plan. And so it came to pass that it arrived at the Supreme Court. As the BBC explained, “The legal case against the policy hinges on the principle of ‘non-refoulement’ - that a person seeking asylum should not be returned to their country of origin if doing so would put them at risk of harm - which is established under both UK and international human rights law”. And the verdict handed down today?

“The government had said its plan to deport asylum seekers to east Africa and ban them from returning was needed to deter illegal small boat crossings. But the Supreme Court ruled it is possible the Rwandan government would send refugees back to the country they had fled in the first place”. Do go on.

“It said the policy breaches human rights laws by potentially leaving the people sent there open to that risk … The Supreme Court agreed with the Court of Appeal decision, and said there are ‘substantial grounds’ to believe people deported to Rwanda could then be sent to places they would be unsafe by the Rwandan government”. Yes, it’s Human Rights again.

So what does the press-generated personality cult of RISHI make of the failed idea from the press-generated personality cult of SUELLA? “This was not the outcome we wanted, but we have spent the last few months planning for all eventualities and we remain completely committed to stopping the boats”. Sadly, SUELLA already let slip that there is no Plan B. But do go on.

“Illegal migration destroys lives and costs British taxpayers millions of pounds a year. We need to end it and we will do whatever it takes to do so. Because when people know that if they come here illegally, they won’t get to stay then they will stop coming altogether, and we will stop the boats”. Says Ron Hopeful, holed up in the Downing Street bunker.

Unfortunately, Sunak cannot stop the meltdown on the right of his party, typified by his deputy chairman. 30p Lee, as Aubrey Allegretti of the Times has noted, “says ministers should go ahead and ‘put planes in the air’ to Rwanda anyway. When I asked if he was suggesting ignoring the Supreme Court ruling, the Tory deputy chairman said govt should ‘ignore the laws and send them straight back’”. Them. People who are not white. Again.

Next stop demanding we leave the ECHR, is it? But, as Tom Larkin of Sky News has reported, the judgment contains this caution: “It is therefore not only the European Convention on Human Rights which is relevant to this was, as is sometimes thought”. Leaving the ECHR would be ineffective.

And there was more. “There are other international treaties which also prohibit the return of asylum seekers to their countries of origin without a proper examination of their claims”. Sunak should sack Anderson as he sacked Ms Braverman. The words of Margaret Thatcher explain why.

“The first duty of Government is to uphold the law. If it tries to bob and weave and duck around that duty when it’s inconvenient, if government does that, then so will the governed, and then nothing is safe - not home, not liberty, not life itself”. Today’s Tories are falling apart through their own idiocy. Sad, really.

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