Zelo Street: July 2024

Tuesday 30 July 2024

Southport Stabbings - Enter The Bigots

Sometimes, the most patient and rational people have difficulty making sense of seemingly random horror. So it was in the aftermath of a multiple and indeed fatal stabbing attack yesterday in the coastal town of Southport. A dance and yoga class with a Taylor Swift theme, followed by bracelet making, for six to eleven year old girls, was interrupted by a knife-wielding attacker.

The class, held in the first week of school summer holidays, was fully booked, with 25 children attending. Some adults tried to put themselves between the attacker and the kids. Many were injured, some seriously. Two of those little girls later died in hospital. Several are in a critical condition. Police detained a 17-year-old, who has been charged with murder and attempted murder.

Inevitably, speculation about the identity of the suspect began. Any consideration for the families of the dead and injured soon went out the window, as a number of malicious and wholly untrue claims were made, mostly to satisfy the warped agendas of a deeply unappealing convocation of intolerant racist bigots. The reality was that the suspect was British.

He lived in Banks, which is up the coast towards Preston, and was originally from Cardiff. So he was not a “migrant”. He had not come here on a dinghy from France. This detail was not allowed to enter for the likes of Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, managing to dispense his thoughts while out of the UK attempting to avoid justice.

After he saw the claim “My two youngest children went to holiday club in Southport for a day of fun only for a migrant to enter and murder / fatally wound multiple children”, Lennon showed that his commitment to “Journalism” did not extend to bothering to verify his chosen sources.

“Nobody can say they weren't warned, I've been warning about this for years. I said this 3 days ago … We knew it was coming, our government knew it was coming, close our borders now, deport all these wrong’uns”. He later trolled the Counter Terrorism Policing feed: “Maybe you should interrogate every f*cker that's coming in on those boats! Because they keep continously [sic] murdering innocent members of the British public”. And it got worse.

Anthony Fowler, a former Olympian no less, also let his bigotry show. “Please tell me why our Government let some sick, demented feller from Syria into our country … Like he just stabbed eight children at a Taylor Swift dance class … Poor kids on a holiday camp dancing … and some Syrian feller’s walked in and stabbed kids. Horrible”. Not a migrant, not Syrian.

But typical of the speculation swirling around. Meanwhile, Lennon’s pal, amateur failed kidnapper Danny Tommo, was calling for unrest. Perhaps. Searchlight Magazine noted “Tommy Robinson's right hand man, Danny Tommo, real name Daniel Thomas, has posted a hate-filled video on You Tube tonight, calling for riots in British cities if the 17-year-old assailant in the Southport stabbings turns out to be a migrant”. But he wasn’t a migrant.

Someone who should have stopped and thought, but never does, was the less than crafty Darren Grimes, who wibbled “Today children were murdered. Today in Parliament MPs called for more ‘refugees’ to be allowed in and to bring their families. I cannot tell you how much I detest them”.

Or as they say in Aberdeen, Whit A Twaat. Former chief prosecutor Nazir Afzal pointed out “The horror in Southport is heartbreaking. My only thoughts have been with the families, they are ALL that matter. As for the conspiracies - Merseyside Police confirm the suspect was born in Cardiff, not ‘a migrant who arrived by boat last year’ - 17 yr olds cannot be named by law”.

And Lizzie Dearden, someone else who Lennon maliciously lied about, and then aggressively doorstepped (welcome to the club), reminded us “professional journalists abide by the legal restrictions in play at times like this, but the general public don't know about them and bad faith actors don't care … It’s a perfect storm for misinformation and it happens time and again. Something needs to change”. Hello Muskrat, Zuck and the rest.

The Southport stabbing was a terrible thing. Please don’t make it worse.

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Monday 29 July 2024

Oh Tommy Tommy - Bravely Ran Away

The question has now been answered: yes, Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, did indeed get himself arrested yesterday, and yes, he was detained under the Terrorism Act 2000. But then came the reasoning behind the detention, and the further news that Lennon has once again taken all those faithful followers of his for so many mugs.

What Lennon did not tell when he made yesterday’s pitch for supporters to hand over more of their hard earned money was which Police force had arrested him. We only knew that it was not the Met. Moreover, the assumption that he had been nicked because of something that happened during his rally on Saturday proved to be wide of the mark.

The Great Man had been stopped while attempting to board a EuroTunnel shuttle service. In other words, he’d been nicked while attempting to flee the country in advance of a court hearing today - concerning his alleged contempt of court over showing his film SILENCED, where he tells a whole stack of flat-out and indeed defamatory lies. And where does the Terrorism Act come in?

Simples. He was asked to unlock his phone. He refused. That is an offence under the Terrorism Act 2000, and one where he would not be within his rights to not say anything, not that Lennon needs much prompting to open his North and South. So his phone was confiscated. By the time he was bailed, thousands would have been stumped up from those supporters.

So what did he do after being bailed? With his presence required at court today, and the certainty of an arrest warrant being issued should he decline to appear, he showed all those supporters just what mugs they were. Brave Tommy ran away: he just got his motor onto the next EuroTunnel shuttle and away he went to France, out of the jurisdiction of the courts.

As the BBC has reported, "A senior judge has issued an arrest warrant for far-right campaigner Stephen Yaxley-Lennon - better known by his alias Tommy Robinson - after learning he has left the country on the eve of a major legal case against him … Yaxley-Lennon left the UK by a Eurotunnel train on Sunday night”. The barrister representing the Attorney General had more.

“We understand he failed to cooperate with a port stop and search … The implication is he was attempting to leave the country and therefore was not intending to attend this hearing this morning … The information that we have is that he is not within the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom”. The Judge decided that the contempt of court application should proceed anyway.

So where will The Great Man fetch up? Who knows, and, indeed, who cares? If he’s driving, it’ll probably be the Spanish mainland. Like the place on the Costa Blanca he was occupying not long ago. When he tried for the umpteenth time to smear anyone mentioning he was living in that approximate area as giving away his address and endangering his family.

Already the more gullible part of his fan base is claiming Lennon is on a “long arranged holiday”. Like heck he is. Were that true, it would merely confirm that he had no intention of facing justice today. He claimed he would be prepared to go to jail. But when push came to shove, he just pocketed all those donations and ran away. So what will happen to supporters’ money?

A significant part of it will be snorted away. More will go on rental and upkeep costs for whatever upmarket and exclusive property The Great Man chooses to occupy for the next few months, while hoping to stay out of trouble and therefore not give the authorities in Spain (or wherever) an excuse to send him back to a jurisdiction where that arrest warrant can be used on him.

More will be expended on food and drink, which someone else will procure and prepare - Lennon won’t be seen slumming it down the local Consum or Mercadona. And don’t forget the cost of that private pool. Stephen Lennon’s fans can pretend all they like - the reality is that their donations are just being used to fuel The Great Man’s upmarket lifestyle. They’ve been had for mugs.

He’s run away with your money, mugs. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Sunday 28 July 2024

Oh Tommy Tommy - Phantom Arrest

And so it came to pass that Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, called his faithful followers to London, where those able to stay the course without falling asleep and/or drifting off to the nearest source of LAWGAH, GINNIS or maybe SMOOV were given a screening of his latest attempt to portray himself as a journalist, a documentary called SILENCED.

However, and here we encounter a significantly-sized however, there was a problem with this magnum opus: there is a High Court injunction out there, banning his or indeed anyone else’s screening of this film. This may not be unconnected with Lennon, as he presents his talking points, talking well, but lying badly. Lying very badly indeed, in fact. And there is more.

The Great Man is due at a court hearing tomorrow in connection with his allegedly having committed Contempt of Court. Should this be considered proven, he is looking at a custodial sentence of up to two years. Over at Hope not Hate, Nick Lowles was in no doubt what the result would be.

“Tommy Robinson is currently screening the film Silenced in Trafalgar Square, just 48 hours before he appears in the High Court accused of breaking an injunction preventing him from releasing the film.. He’s heading to jail”. Which would be his fifth custodial sentence. In the meantime, his passport needs to be seized. Because he’s a nailed-on flight risk.

Lowles had more. “The Attorney General’s office have been made aware of Tommy Robinson screening a film he was banned from showing. Such a flagrant disregard for the law could well see him facing the maximum two-year sentence. Only himself to blame … Questions have to be asked of [the Metropolitan Police]. Did they know that Tommy Robinson was going to screen a film that contravened a High Court order? Why did officers stand by and allow a film, banned in the U.K., to be shown?”. Why indeed?

It’s possible that the cops made the judgment call on the basis that lifting Lennon yesterday may have resulted in significant unrest - because his followers, for whom The Great Man’s word is gospel truth and not a stream-of-consciousness pack of lies, would have kicked off. But now that they have all dispersed, the Rozzers have moved in and caused Lennon to be nicked.

Or so it seems: Stephen Yaxley Lennon has this morning been arrested. His Twitter feed says “We can confirm that Tommy Robinson has been detained by Police using powers afforded to them under the Terrorism Act 2000 … Tommy is being held by Police using counter terrorism legislation”.

But then came a problem: Lennon’s Twitter feed claimed he’d been nicked, but that of Urban Scoop, which promotes the message of Himself Personally Now, had said nothing. Worse, while our free and fearless press were reporting on the alleged arrest, they were hedging their bets.

Like Mail Online, who told “MailOnline has been unable to independently confirm that Robinson has been arrested … The Metropolitan Police has told MailOnline is 'does not recognise' the claims made in the post and that if he had been taken into custody there was 'no Met involvement’”. Even GB News added the caveat “according to his social media account".

And guess what? The Lennon Twitter feed has also told his followers “ADMIN POST - PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TO PRESSURE THE ATTORNEY GENERAL TO PUT A STOP TO THE POLITICAL PROSECUTION OF TOMMY ROBINSON. GO TO [truthontrial DOT co DOT uk]". What a coincidence - Lennon needs lots of signatures on his petition to the AG, Lennon gets arrested, Lennon’s useful idiots sign up in support.

But why would Lennon lie about getting nicked? Well, for starters, we don’t know if he has been lifted or not. But it’s another of those embarrassing chains of events. As Louise Raw, who you can tell as she’s a doctor, puts it, “what we call arrests, HE calls PAYDAYS!” The event to keep an eye out for is his hearing tomorrow. And what happens as a result of that hearing.

One thing you can believe about Stephen Lennon is not to believe him at all.

Saturday 27 July 2024

New Press Revelations No Surprise

Demonstrating that they are as bad as the Tories at making very public judgment calls, the Labour leadership declared recently that Part 2 of the Leveson Inquiry was not a priority for them. This followed claims that assurances of No Leveson 2 had been given to the Murdoch mafiosi in return for the latter’s titles to endorse, or at least lay off, The Red Team.

All of which may not have been such a problem, had ITV not had Tabloids on Trial in the works, which explored the press’ use of what are known as The Dark Arts, and especially in the context of continuing legal actions against their number by people like the Duke of Sussex - whose campaign tells you why there is so much knocking copy directed in his general direction.

Rebecca Barry of ITV News set the scene: “I interview Prince Harry - plus others who found themselves catapulted onto the tabloid front pages … Our documentary also features Hugh Grant, Charlotte Church and Paul Gascoigne - as well as people suddenly thrust into the public eye”.

One of those thrust into the public eye was Paul Dadge, a first responder who had come to the aid of those wounded during the July 7th attacks in London. In return for his giving the press his mobile number, so they could ask him follow-up questions, they hacked his voicemail. He wasn’t a Sleb, there was no public interest defence whatever for the press to fall back on. The default behaviour was, at the time, to hack voicemail. Think about that.

And as to limits to the bad behaviour, there were none. That much has been confirmed by the presence of one Paul McMullan, whose recent book detailing his less than totally ethical activities is named after the phrase he made famous during his interrogation before the Leveson Inquiry - “Privacy is for Paedos”. A piece in Prospect magazine has the grim and gory details.

“The [Screws] had paid a policeman for a tip that Jennifer [Elliott, daughter of Denholm] was a heroin addict … ‘Yeah, I really went too far - she was begging because she had a heroin addiction. And that was enough, but I had to offer 50 quid for a shag. No, I think I changed it to 20 quid and she accepted that … So not only do I expose her as a beggar and a heroin addict, I now expose her as a bloody prostitute, which she wasn’t’”. Do go on.

“She was found hanging a few years later in Ibiza. She hanged herself, committed suicide. And I thought, you know, I went too far on that one”. He went too far when inventing one last vicious story about Diana, Princess of Wales. But “I'm not ashamed of any of the things” he got up to.

But, those who believe we should just “move on”, and that the press has cleaned up its act, will claim this is all in the past and that this kind of thing no longer happens. However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, we have to take the press on trust for that. And taking the press on trust, in the past, has proved to be a most unwise course of action.

Just what has previously gone on, and may still be going on, was summed up by Paul Gascoigne: “I bought 6 phones, kept on changing numbers and thought, GOD WHEN IS IT GOING TO STOP? I become a recluse, didn’t speak to nobody”. Actor and campaigner Hugh Grant added “This isn’t only about phone hacking- there were microphones & trackers dropped in my car”.

It was more than phone hacking for former PM Gordon Brown: “This group had no limits, hacking my bank, utility accounts, and seeking police information. Even as Chancellor and Prime Minister”. Improper access to the Police National Computer was a costly item for the press. But for the most high profile targets, it was a cost they were prepared to pay.

Having watched Tabloids on Trial, Jim Hawkins concluded “The press hasn't cleaned up its act. There are still huge questions to be answered. And lots of people who watched last night will be asking when the second part of the Leveson Inquiry will happen”. Which last is now down to those controlling business at the Labour Party. Who may think they have nothing to fear.

So the press haven’t come for them yet? They will. And when they do, Labour’s NEC will not be able to out-clever them. Not this time they won’t.

Thursday 25 July 2024

Labour, Caps, And Cruelty

Tuesday evening’s vote came and went, and despite the threats, seven Labour MPs voted for the SNP amendment urging abolition of the two child cap. As a result, all seven had the party whip removed for a period of six months, but what is most disturbing is not the keeping of 300,000 in poverty, but the uncaring and even triumphant attitude of many in the Party.

All that this blog had pointed up in the run-in to the election was on display; the attitude, the entitlement, the inability to see those 300,000 as individuals, and once more the tendency to frame the event as the “grownups in the room” putting one over on the Rotten Lefties™, or even the additional framing of anyone capable of showing a shred of empathy as mere “Trots”.

Anyone not yet taking that on board need look no further than Duncan Robinson’s article for The Economist, “Why Britain’s Labour Government Enjoys Hippy Punching”, and yes, the “grownups in the room”, having declared that anyone able to show empathy is a “Trot”, have also decreed that those individuals are also “hippies”, a word they couldn’t define.

Other than to point at said lefties, that is. Here’s a flavour of the article: “Hippy-punching is in vogue for two reasons. Partly, Labour’s leadership think it is good politics. More voters lurk to Labour’s right than to its left. It can afford to lose ‘vegan’ constituencies such as Bristol Central to the Green Party. A single voter in marginal Leigh [yes, Leigh is now ‘marginal’] is worth more than a pile of them in the Labour heartland of Liverpool”. Do go on.

“A positive piece in the Sun, a reactionary tabloid, is worth 99 simpering editorials in the Guardian, the hippy bugle … Partly, Labour’s leaders simply enjoy it. The party has a near-psychotic approach to its internal politics, and people now at the top have long dreamed of kicking lefties out of the party”.

There was more. “‘Country first, party second’ is a well-worn slogan of Sir Keir’s Labour. Factionalism still comes before both. Work combines with pleasure”. But not all remaining Labour MPs are enamoured of the puerile game playing, as Adam Bienkov of Byline Times noted.

“Keir Starmer's allies saw last night's vote as a ‘virility test’ but suspending MPs for voting to lift children out of poverty is the politics of Johnson and Cummings … Why some Labour MPs are furious about the ‘draconian’ treatment of the rebels”. Richard Murphy saw the very public fallout from the vote and added “That’s good news. Bullies who pick on those supporting the vulnerable really should be called out in public”. And it got worse.

Pro-nationalist Scots outlet The National splashed a photo of Labour apparatchiks celebrating, telling “LABOUR’S MESSAGE AFTER VOTING FOR TWO-CHILD CAP … ‘Celebration’ picture posted in aftermath of vote sparks condemnation”, to which Dan Hancox added “Good to see this made a front page. If you're going to spend 4 years lecturing the left that they don't know how to work with the media, are too unserious to effectively 'play the game' etc - then you deserve this”. It also revealed another NEC player.

Right in the middle of that group, rictus grin on display (as so often), the bloke holding a plastic glass half full of (apparently) beer, is one Abdi Duale. Who he? One of those on the NEC who has worked behind the scenes against the left, pal of Luke Akehurst, now celebrating the maintenance of poverty.

I have a question for Duale, Akehurst and indeed Morgan McSweeney: after all the self-congratulation, answer me this. How many members and supporters has this less than “grown up” behaviour alienated? How many people will be there to turn out and canvass for Labour next time round?

The Lib Dems held by-election trophy South Shropshire, and both constituencies that came out of the Tiverton and Honiton split. Labour failed to hold on to Mid Bedfordshire, in addition to all the independents taking seats from them, or running them close. What advantage will accrue from having your pure strain of authoritarianism lording it over everyone else?

It’s almost as if no-one in the Labour machine thought of that. Sad, really.

Sunday 21 July 2024

Rachel Reeves And Bad Economics

The incoming Labour Government, we are told, is looking to economic growth to drive us forward towards the Brave New World of not being a member state of the European Union, but performing considerably better than under the last days of the Tories. But new Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves doesn’t seem to have figured her economic basics.

While some in the media class tell anyone listening that Ms Reeves at 11 Downing Street means that the grownups are back in charge, she steadfastly refuses to move the one lever of the economy which would almost immediately generate more economic activity, get the economy growing, and would be hugely popular with many of Labour’s voters.

So we arrive at the Two Child Cap. This relic of Tory austerity was imposed to limit the payment of child benefit to a family’s first two children only. Its imposition means that, from the third child onward, no child benefit will be paid. This has left many families struggling, and has made them the target of bad faith actors in the right leaning part of our free and fearless press.

SHOULDN’T HAVE THEM IF THEY CAN’T AFFORD THEM comes the plaintive refrain from obscenely overpaid hacks and pundits, few if any of whom have recently, if ever, been in the situation faced by many of the families affected, many of which are both “in work” and still having to rely on the generosity of food banks. The solution is glaringly straightforward.

And that solution is to remove the Two Child Cap, paying for the extra expenditure by taxing the very well off. It is, whisper it quietly, a no brainer. Moreover, it is plainly redistributive: it takes a relatively modest amount from those with a strong Propensity to Save, and gives to those with a rather stronger Propensity to Spend. An explainer on this is required.

Rich people get a tax break? They already have more money than they need, so are most likely to save the additional funds. Hence Propensity to Save. The less well off, on the other hand, almost always have less money than what they need to support a half decent lifestyle, so any extra is going to be spent, and in short order too. Hence their Propensity to Spend.

Additionally, the well off will notice a small reduction in their overall wealth less than those less well off. From there it can be seen that the imposition of the Two Child Cap effectively removed purchasing power from the less well off - thus reducing economic activity. Removing the Cap will immediately restore spending power to the less well off. More economic activity follows.

After all, the effect of removing the Two Child Cap is not dissimilar to that of giving less well paid workers a pay rise - the propensity to spend is strong, and yes, economic activity will be heightened as a result. That pay rise has been “hinted” at by Ms Reeves. But still the Two Child Cap is clung onto, as if an act of economic redistribution would cause the sky to fall in.

This matters: how the Chancellor acts will tell us whether this Government really wants to improve the lot of those at the bottom of the pile, or whether it’s merely a case of the new authoritarianism behind the Labour leadership telling the world “nah, not doing that, cos that’s what Trots do”.

Removing the Two Child Cap is an economic no-brainer. If Rachel Reeves wants to be both competent and consistent, she must act. That is all.

Saturday 20 July 2024

Leeds Riot - Farage Lies Again

Although he has (temporarily, you understand) abandoned the voters of Clacton in favour of a pre-arranged jaunt to Milwaukee to show his support for Combover Crybaby Donald Trump (who didn’t have time for him), Reform UK Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage has made time to sound off on events in the UK, where, as so often, he has talked well, but lied badly.

What provoked Mr Thirsty into his latest display of lying was a disturbance in the Harehills area of north-east Leeds. Social services had, earlier on Thursday, removed five children from a Roma family, as in people of eastern European and Christian origin. There had been disturbances in the wake of the removals. A Police car was flipped over. A bus was burned.

And so it came to pass that Farage reverted to type, and went full dishonest racist bigot, declaring “The politics of the subcontinent are currently playing out on the streets of Leeds. Don’t say I didn’t warn you”. An eastern European and Christian family has, in the retelling, become Scary Muslims™! Because the “subcontinent” reference is where Farage is leading his followers.

He was, more disturbingly, on the same page as Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, who had claimed “the newly elected councillor for the area rioting tonight in Leeds. Multiple reports he’s even on the streets with them”. Mothin Ali, in fact, “was seen by dozens of people earlier in the evening intervening, in an attempt to calm the disorder and stop the attacks on police”, as the Guardian later told. Lennon lied too.

Worse, Farage was not the only one of the Reform UK brains trust sounding off about the disturbance. Lee Anderson ranted “Disgraceful Scenes. Import a third world culture then you get third world behaviour. These animals need locking up for good. They are a product of our spineless namby pamby establishment who have betrayed our great country”. He lied too.

And he got an A for hypocrisy, having previously claimed those who trashed a Police van “were not far right extremists, they are just normal family people” when there were disturbances outside the Suites Hotel in Knowsley, after a number of asylum seekers were temporarily housed there.

The result of whipping up the mob can be seen in the responses to Farage and Anderson: there is the occasional voice trying to deal in fact and reason, but most are demanding deportations, claiming Roma do not hail from eastern Europe and/or that eastern Europe really is a third world place, and, tellingly, asserting that Reform UK is the only party listening to them.

As if Farage ever listened to anyone else. Former prosecutor Nazir Afzal summed it up: “Last time I checked members of the Romanian community protesting (violently & unlawfully) about some children being taken into care in Leeds has nothing to do with the politics of the subcontinent. Not Muslims Nigel. But a lie is a lie”. Nick Lowles of Hope not Hate had more.

“On Sunday night there were outbreaks of disorder all over the country, following England’s Euro24 defeat. Funny how [Nigel Farage], [Paul Golding] and [Tommy Robinson] remained silent. I wonder why that might be”. We know why: that disorder featured white people. While what happened in Leeds may not have. Farage has once again lied, and gone full racist.

He showed you who he was. You should have believed him the first time.

Thursday 18 July 2024

Labour And Racist Cry-Bullying

After securing a landslide election victory on a mere 34% of the popular vote, new Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his team are devoting rather less than their undivided attention to those constituencies they lost, or came close to losing. He would, he said after being gently prompted, address the loss of voter support in areas with a significant Muslim population.

The first signs of how that would happen are not good. Adil Ray was not impressed: “This is hugely damaging if he thinks he can carry on by simply ignoring the concerns of many British Muslims”. And then came Jonathan Ashworth. Ashworth had lost his seat to independent candidate Shockat Adam. Had he reflected on why this happened? Seemingly not.

He had been subjected to robust questioning by his constituents on why he had not called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. And, as Saul Staniforth observed, “Ashworth says his opponent won on the basis of a foul lie, that he has the blood of Gazan children on his hands … When 4,600 Palestinian children had been killed, Ashworth refused to vote for a ceasefire. When over 12,000 children had been killed he voted for a ceasefire”.

Also, he was waved through into the studios of national broadcasters. Shockat Adam was not, although he was given a platform by Owen Jones. His observations were to the point. Voters wanted their MPs to voice their concerns, but instead were met not with engagement, but silence.

Gaza was the lightening rod for many in those constituencies where Labour lost to independents, but yes, there were other concerns. As Taj Ali pointed out, “Labour's vote share decreased by 6.9% in the most deprived parts of Britain … When people see their communities fall into decline and they feel worse off, they will look for answers elsewhere”. There were other factors.

Where was the action on racism? The double standards which resulted in what Martin Forde called a “hierarchy of racism” in Labour? Defending Muslim communities from postal voting smears? Standing behind those communities over the phoney “Trojan Horse” letter? Denouncing the far right and its attempts to smear Muslim communities over “grooming gang” claims?

But all we get is talk of “faith-based politics”, and even “sectarian voting”. And an intervention by John Woodcock, former Labour MP and more recently ennobled by disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. Woodcock is trying to draw a parallel between the Trump shooting and claims of intimidation of election candidates in the UK.

As the Guardian has told, “John Woodcock wrote to Yvette Cooper on Friday expressing his concern that a series of incidents in the election campaign could have been a ‘concerted campaign by extremists’ that ‘underlined the gravity of the threat to our democracy”. COULD have been.

There was more. “We have seen the growth in the UK of US-style politics of aggressive confrontation and intimidation which is unfortunately, exactly the toxic environment that could lead to another assassination attempt on a UK politician, of which we have already tragically seen a number in recent years”. COULD lead to. And more. Including suggestions of conspiracy.

“Woodcock said he believed intimidation was increasingly being used as ‘a core electoral strategy to try to either get candidates defeated or bully candidates into submission’. He added that there was a particular pattern of abuse ‘created by aggressive pro-Palestine activists’”. He BELIEVED.

Do go on. “The peer called on [Ms] Cooper and the security minister, Dan Jarvis, to commission a short inquiry to establish whether groups in different constituencies were working together before the 4 July general election”. CONSPIRACY! But this is so much evidence-free horseshit. The brutal and seemingly random mass killing, the blowing to pieces of little children (or their summary incineration), along with all the racism and taking for granted.

Some communities have had enough. Stop gaslighting them. Stop smearing them. And start engaging with them. That, Labour politicians, is your job.

Sunday 14 July 2024

Trump Shooting - Enter The Wackos

As he rambled ad infinitum, and indeed ad nauseam, in the general direction of the not really very large crowd during a rally stop somewhere in the state of Pennsylvania, someone aimed a rifle at Combover Crybaby Donald Trump, apparently winging him and drawing some blood. His detail of security staff swarmed Trump and whisked him away. The shooter was shot dead.

So far, so procedural, but in the world of the far right, the wacko, the meatheads, the conspiracy mongers, and indeed the irretrievably batshit are never far away, and so it came to pass that someone had to be to blame. To no surprise at all, the people to blame were those opposed to Trump.

None of the brains trust spewing incoherent bile managed to notice that The Donald had just secured the endorsement of the NRA, thanks to his “gun friendly” stance. He urged gun owners to turn out to vote. Yeah, make guns easier to obtain, that’ll make America safe, won’t it? OK, scrub that one for a moment, move on to the tried and tested claim that the shooter was a Democrat. Take that, Dems! Except it soon emerged that he wasn’t.

Despite more of those wackos reinventing the “Shooter is a Dem” claim, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was, at least in 2022, a registered Republican. Also registered as a Republican, Mike Collins represents Georgia’s tenth district in the House. As a holder of elective office, one might think he would try and calm the situation. And one might think wrong.

After someone took a pre-debate comment from Joe Biden - “We’re done talking about the debate, it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye” - off he went. “Joe Biden sent the orders”. Could he get more apeshit? Er, “The Republican District Attorney in Butler County, PA, should immediately file charges against Joseph R. Biden for inciting an assassination”. Absolute head case.

How about some closer-to-home idiocy? Well, over at the increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine, Kate Andrews has a hot take on the shooting. Except, er, let’s just look at the headline. “Today, we’re all MAGA”. And there’s a straight-A fuck right off. We can be concerned without backing the GOP.

Closer still to home? How about Reform UK Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage? Adam Bienkov of Byline Times noted "Nigel Farage says violent language by BBC comedians and Radio 4 commentators have ‘encouraged’ what happened to Trump and ‘have a lot to do with this’”. Mr Thirsty says The Beeb Done It. The person who said he would “pick up a rifle” if Brexit was not delivered to the satisfaction of Himself Personally Now.

The same Nigel Farage who claimed the EU referendum had been won “without a shot being fired”, managing to miss that serving Labour MP Jo Cox had been murdered during the campaign, causing it to be paused. Ms Cox’s sister Kim Leadbeater simply said “Shocking scenes from America this morning. There is no place for political violence in our societies. My thoughts are with President Trump and his family and all the victims of this attack”.

Farage, meanwhile, has been given a platform by the BBC. Despite the claims he made about them. And despite his own claim that he was going to boycott the broadcaster because a Question Time audience gave him some stick. Nige, remember, got attacked too. By two dastardly milkshakes.

Meanwhile, Shayan Sardarizadeh of BBC Verify has noted “OSINTdefender, Laura Loomer and some other major accounts are falsely claiming this is a photo of the shooter at Trump's Pennsylvania rally. This is the picture of an X user, who posted it himself as a trolling attempt a couple of hours ago and is very much alive”. Ms Loomer was banned by both Uber and Lyft after complaining she could not get an ethnically pure hire car driver. Wibble.

For the real howling-at-the-moon right, Marjorie Taylor Greene (imagine her as Trump’s VP pick) brought us “Pray for America. The left wants a civil war. They have been trying to start one for years. These people are sick and evil. All of us on the right want peace, security, equal justice, freedom, and prosperity for ALL Americans”. Like they did on January 6th, 2021, eh?

Maybe we don’t have the detail yet, eh? Tom Nichols of The Atlantic put it this way: “Anyone in your timeline saying this is staged, the fault of one side or the other, whatabouting, or really, anything other than sitting tight and waiting for more information, is likely someone you'll never have a productive conversation with and might as well block”. Amen to that.

And Dan Kaszeta (ex US Army and USSS) concluded “A lot of the commentary right now ranges from unhelpful to actively harmful”. Too many out there are using this incident to promote their own warped view of the world, while the rest of us actually want to know what happened.

And remember, you don’t back the NRA and then condemn gun violence.

Tuesday 9 July 2024

Reform And The Phantom Menace

Hardly has the General Election result been reported and picked over, than suspicion has been aroused as regards some of the candidates who stood for Reform UK, the domain of self-appointed Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his pals. It was put to his side-kick Richard Tice (he’s not very nice) that some Reform candidates may not even have existed.

This was put to Tice by Robert Peston on the latter’s ITV show, causing the Reform man to lose it in no style at all. “It is a total fabricated lie that is nothing short of defamatory, libellous and totally outrageous. We’ve proved it to people like [the Lib Dems] and the Guardian and still they print this utter trash and garbage. I’m steaming mad about it”. Steaming, Goon Show fans!

There was more. “To suggest that we put forward false names and candidates - one of whom was in hospital at the count with pneumonia, nearly died for heaven’s sake. People need to get a grip”. Tice’s problem was that people were indeed getting a grip - like those asking questions getting a very firm grip of the narrative. Peter Walker of the Guardian had a correction.

“Reform have *not* as yet provided details to prove the identities of some candidates. We emailed them yesterday at 11am with three names (not mentioned in the story) asking for evidence. We are yet to get a reply”. Meanwhile, the candidate who had “almost died” took just 96 hours from that moment to be videoed dancing around his kitchen.

Mark Matlock had used a clearly doctored photo, for which he made a variety of excuses - it had to be edited so his tie could appear to be in the Reform UK colours, or that the photographers had all been booked up. He then appeared with apprentice gobshite Patrick Christys on Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”) to show he was a real person. However.

He looked nothing like the photo, and also appeared to have problems with his use of English. “Unfortunately I will not be attending the count tonight as I have pneumonia. The hospital I visited was closed before it’s [sic] closing time. I said to the nurse on a buzzer I am struggling to breath [sic] and she said call a number”. 96 hours later and he’s bopping around his house.

They seek them here, they seek them there, they seek Reform UK candidates everywhere

And on the subject of defamation, Peter Jukes of Byline Times noted "While Tice rages about ‘defamation’ he should remember Farage admitted there was no proper vetting of the candidates, and this is a matter of high public interest (and therefore has a public interest defence) given Reform are seeking public ‘short money’ dependent on votes cast”. Quite.

Furthermore, Byline Times had discovered more Reform UK candidates who were absent elsewhere when their counts happened. “Now Mark Matlock has been verified (with quite an amazing recovery from the pneumonia that kept him away from the count) we have at least 30 other Reform candidates who have not been identified or have other potential issues with their declaration”.

There was more. “Overnight the number of unverified candidates with no official photo or presence at the count has risen to 50. At best, these may be ‘paper candidates’ - but it is still bizarre that they require no photo ID or verification, unlike voters”. We have also seen one reliable right-wing shill site trying to put journalists off asking all those inconvenient questions.

The perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog told anyone not yet asleep “Some dark corners of the sanctimonious left’s presence on Twitter have been frantically trying to come to terms with the fact that Reform did so well at the election. Their chosen conspiracy? That Reform’s ‘paper candidates’ in unwinnable seats aren’t real people at all”.

So that’s an admission that Reform UK fielded “paper candidates”. Spend a few thousand notes on online ads, and add the rest of the £55,000 per candidate spending allowance to the pot for pushes in winnable seats. Not illegal. But if any of those candidates aren’t even “paper candidates”, that’s different. And the Fawkes folks don’t want anyone going there.

All of which means investigations will continue. Questions, questions, eh?

Sunday 7 July 2024

Hello BBC - Your Team Lost

Winston Churchill once said that he knew very little about economics, but he did know that shooting Montagu Norman would have been a good thing. Churchill had relied heavily on the advice of the then Governor of the Bank of England when he was made Chancellor of the Exchequer by Stanley Baldwin in the latter’s 1924 to 1929 Government. The sentiment concerned one issue.

A most unfortunate juxtaposition

Norman had been highly supportive of returning Sterling to the Gold Standard, and at the pre-World War 1 rate of one pound to 4.86 US Dollars. The obvious problem was that Sterling was by this time worth no more than around $4.40. The initially lauded return to Gold had the effect of increasing the cost of UK exports by around 10%. So those abroad went elsewhere.

Norman and his counterparts from France and Germany then went to the USA to ask if the folks Stateside could perhaps alleviate the situation by a little loosening of monetary policy, which they duly did. From that point, rather a lot of the easier money went on purchasing common stocks, with the result that an overheated stock market crashed in late 1929.

Now, I know very little about the internal machinations of the BBC, but I do know that removing Robbie Gibb - permanently - from the Corporation would be a good thing. Anyone who is comfortable sharing a platform with the luminaries of the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance, and the rest of the Tufton Street alphabet soup brigade, has no place at our national broadcaster.

Looking at the Beeb’s website this morning, one could be forgiven for concluding that it was the Tories who won last week’s General Election, such is the glaring bias in coverage. The faux “equivalence” is there in the first UK News headline: “Starmer heading to Scotland as Jenrick says Tories failed to deliver”. Who gives a flying foxtrot what Robert bloody Jenrick thinks?

Scroll down a little and it gets worse: “Who could replace Rishi Sunak as party leader?” Only in the sub-heading does the word CONSERVATIVES appear. Default party = Tory party. Scroll down a bit more, to Latest Updates. “A quick guide to the PM who only lasted 45 days” is followed by “A very quick guide to Penny Mordaunt” and “A quick guide to Rishi Sunak”.

Not only are those features about Tories, but the first two lost their seats. And what’s this? “Gloomy in Looe as fishermen reflect on Labour coup”. Tanks on the streets, was it? It didn’t get any better when the Laura Kuenssberg show had its first post-election airing. Jenrick was one of two Tories given a platform. That’s the party with just 121 MPs. As opposed to Labour with 411.

Ed Davey, whose party put on another 61 MPs to reach a record high for them of 72, was greeted by the grudging “Congratulations, I suppose”. Former Chief Prosecutor Nazir Afzal summed it up: “Laura Kuenssberg seems to be finding it hard to be in opposition”. So Jenrick is kicking off the Tory leadership race? Who cares? They’re out of it. Stop promoting them.

Likewise, the effective awarding of a season ticket for Question Time and other shows to Reform UK Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage has to stop: his is a fringe party with just five seats. If he and his pals get access, so should the Greens. So they got a lot of votes. So did the Liberals in 1974, and the Liberal-SDP Alliance in 1983. Did the Beeb give them season tickets, too?

Giving the Tories such prominence despite their drubbing last week, and worse, giving a platform to the kinds of Tories who belong firmly in the wacko fringe, is out of order. Questionable displays of “impartiality” - pitting those with comprehensive knowledge of a subject against lobby group activists with bad faith talking points - should also be brought to an end.

That means serving up news and current affairs in a genuinely even-handed manner. No Astroturf lobby groups, especially those who decline to say who funds them. Fact check those known to peddle assertions of dubious veracity. No more Question Time audience plants. And let the Tories run their own leadership contest. They’ve got enough pals in the press as it is.

Robbie Gibb at the BBC was for a time, but not for all time. Order the taxi.

Saturday 6 July 2024

Labour Landslide - Slow Handclap

And so ends the 2024 General Election campaign, the triumphant end point of the mission, so the media narrative goes, to make the Labour Party electable once more, with voters now able to make the positive choice to vote for The Red Team. After all, Labour now had a 170 seat majority, and had won in a landslide. But that electable positive choice was absent elsewhere.

New and electable leader secures for Labour ...

It was left to master pollster John Curtice to bring Labour cheerleaders the bad news: “Actually, but for the rise of the Labour Party in Scotland... we would be reporting that basically Labour’s vote has not changed from what it was in 2019”. In fact, the party garnered fewer votes than in 2019.

You remember 2019? Labour allegedly in the grip of “trots”, beset by claims of institutional anti-Semitism, when rather a lot of people within the party, it has since been alleged, either didn’t bother to campaign for its then leader, or tried their damnedest to throw the contest. Yes, totally unelectable Labour scored more votes than new and totally different Labour.

How such a thing could happen, and with such a different result, is down to the Tory vote collapsing - and the First Past The Post voting system. Labour’s vote share was up on 2019, but turnout was, shamefully, lower at something like 60%. The “Landslide on 34%” has now incurred the displeasure of the Daily Mail, calling it a “Loveless landslide”. There will be more of that.

And while the Tories were duly turfed out, Labour’s stance on the Gaza conflict, Starmer’s clumsy mention of “returning people to Bangladesh”, its below shitty treatment of former leader Jeremy Corbyn, and equally shitty treatment of some of its candidates deserve analysis, as does the patently ridiculous behaviour of some of those client journalists out there.

Corbyn stood as an independent. Labour’s choice of Praful Nargund was staggeringly arrogant: here was someone who had made a lot of money in the healthcare business. A series of party luminaries let it be known that they were campaigning against Jezza. And then came the superior insights of the New Statesman magazine, starting with pundit Rachel Cunliffe.

Here was her schtick, delivered on live TV: “I have always found the argument that Jeremy Corbyn is such a prominent local figure, that he would be able to mount a strong, independent campaign. That has never really chimed with my experience living in the constituency. He certainly wasn’t particularly active in the time that I was there”. Would a Tweet/X/Whatever extolling the analysis of Ben Walker and Finn McRedmond add more?

... fewer votes than his predecessor. Who won his seat, thanks

It certainly would. “A few weeks ago Novara Media tried to claim that Labour's 14-point lead over Jeremy Corbyn in this seat was a narrow gap. It really isn't. But it has narrowed slightly”. Get sneering! Nose a little higher in the air, eh? Corbyn won, with a majority of more than 7,000. The Staggers? Meet the new client journalists, not so different from the old client journalists.

The new authoritarian Labour Party had other problems, too. In Chingford and Woodford Green, the cynical last-minute sidelining of Faiza Shaheen, on whom Keir Starmer had showered so much praise, resulted in her running as an independent, the anti-Tory vote splitting, and Iain Duncan Cough living to fight another day. And no, it was not Ms Shaheen’s fault. It was Labour’s.

Had the ousting not taken place, she would have won. Who did the ousting? The newly authoritarian Labour Party. For party loyalist Jonathan Ashworth, it got much worse: he lost his seat to a pro-Palestinian independent. Wes Streeting came close as Leanne Mohamad got within 530 votes of dispatching him. He described the campaign as “ugly”.

Which is an interesting way of saying “I nearly got humiliated by one of those Scary Muslims™”. How “ugly” is it for tens of thousands of Gazans to be randomly blown to pieces, Wes? Streeting, whose reputation at this blog was shredded when he failed to call out Tom Harwood’s lying on Question Time, needs to ask himself why he nearly lost, which he may not.

Starmer himself experienced a fall in vote share and number of votes cast for him. He also had to contend with a significant independent campaign from Andrew Feinstein. Labour lost Dewsbury and Batley to an independent by almost 7,000 votes. They lost Blackburn. They kicked out and then patronised Jo Bird, who has came second in Birkenhead for the Greens.

Calling for a ceasefire in Gaza is not anti-Semitic, or indeed anti-Israel. Labour could have done that and headed off all the grief. Instead, a large part of their core vote has been alienated. On the other side of politics, the far right now has a presence in Parliament, given yet more airtime yesterday evening by the BBC, which really has had a dreadful election.

Relying on Tory collapse in order to win cannot be repeated. Realisation has dawned that Labour is beatable. Slow handclap, authoritarians.

Thursday 4 July 2024

Election Day Press Shame

The day has finally dawned, when, if the latest poll is to be believed, Labour will sweep to a tally of well over 400 MPs, with the Tories facing something between annihilation and wipeout. The conclusion to the election campaign is as obvious now as it has been since Rishi Sunak went to see Brian in late May, his pals bet on the election date, and Labour were thereby alerted.

Turnout looks as if it may be on the high side: good. Sunak might, just might, provide the ultimate Portillo moment of the night as it looks possible that he could lose his seat. Five-figure Tory majorities are set to fall across the country, with at least one poll suggesting that Esther McVey in true blue Tatton could be a casualty. The Tories may end up with fewer than 100 seats.

If The Blue Team does worse even than that low bar, we could be looking at their being replaced as the official opposition by the Lib Dems. All of the foregoing is shaping up to provide excellent spectator sport after polls close at 2200 hours. But for one group of observers, there is a fear and foreboding in the air. They are the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press.

While the Murdoch Sun has done a screeching U-Turn during the week, going from attacking Labour to telling their remaining readers that Keir Starmer and his pals are actually the winning team, and the Sunday Times has also backed The Red Team, the daily title under the editorship of the deeply unpleasant Tony Gallagher has gone into fence-sitting mode.

Not so the Daily Brexit, still called the Express, which is pleading with any readers not yet asleep to back the Tories. The increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph has invented a Labour council tax raid. The Mail is trying to get readers not to back Reform UK. It is in a blind panic.

“Soaring taxes [no citation], uncontrolled immigration [no citation] … rampant wokery [meaningless drivel], betrayal of women’s rights [should be right up the Mail’s street, then], Net Zero mania [there is no mania], weaker defence [no citation], surrender of our Brexit freedoms [what ‘Brexit freedoms’ would those be, then?] - and votes at 16 to ‘rig’ future elections [is that in the Labour manifesto? I blinked and missed it]” And the “Supermajority” crap, too.

As well as the blatantly dishonest “You can stop it”. Right now, those Daily Mail readers with whom the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre had his imaginary “conversations” are queuing up at polling stations to vote out his preferred party of Government. After 14 years of ineptitude, corruption, waste, cronyism, cruelty, gaslighting, dishonesty, and rampant self-interest.

But what frightens the press more is that they have thus far failed to coax any assurance out of the Starmer team that there will be no return to Part 2 of the Leveson Inquiry, and the associated prospect of properly independent press regulation. No assurance that the press will be able to carry on behaving as badly as they see fit. Hence the panic, more lying, and scare stories.

Because a Government with a three-figure majority need not fear what all those obscenely overmonied hacks and pundits do in their efforts to derail whatever agenda is put before Parliament. If Labour triggers Leveson 2, not all the press lobbying in the Western world will stop it. Seeing what the press got up to for all those years will begin to turn the public’s heads. Good.

Worse for the press, the proliferation of poverty, those thousands of food banks, many working full time and still unable to make ends meet, will count against them. Why buy a paper when those who contribute to its production have so little understanding of how difficult life is for those hardworking people whom they claim to champion? They don’t care. Like the Tories.

The voters listened to the press, and their pals in all those Astroturf lobby groups. It got them a country that is in serious decline, a health service that is on its knees, roads that are literally falling apart, public transport that is either absent or expensive, a Police service that is mostly ineffective, and all they see is rich people filling their pockets. Then they see the press.

A press supporting more cruelty and more poverty. Don’t forget to vote.

Wednesday 3 July 2024

Behold The New Entitled Elite

One word that endures, whoever is in power, is Entitlement. It was on display throughout the tenure of disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson; this, sadly, continued through the blessedly brief interregnum of batshit and utterly inept Liz Truss, and has been maintained by the self-promoting failure that is Rishi Sunak.

The New Elite 1 - Luke Akehurst ...

What has become clear, furthermore, is that, in its own way, entitlement will be the name of the game for Labour when, as now seems inevitable, the Party clears out the Tories tomorrow and takes power for the first time since 2010. The new entitled elite will not be Something In The City, and nor will they have a berth in or near 55 Tufton Street. But they will still be entitled.

And they will still be elite, although in a different way. Not for the up-and-coming Labour entitled elite the moonlighting on Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”). Not for them the column in the Mail, Telegraph, Express, or indeed the Spectator, the latter’s summer parties about to become a sad irrelevance, and deservedly so.

No, the new Entitled Elite of Labour will show their entitlement through their hold on power, on the party, controlling who is in, who is out, who is to be praised, and who has incurred their displeasure. Availability of directorships is out. Ennoblement may only be temporary, unlike the Tories. Seats in the Commons, SpAd appointments, vacancies for backroom plotters, are in.

They will be featured in the Guardian (BTDTGTTS), or in some cases, they already have been, such is the swaggering confidence bordering on downright arrogance. We’ve seen Spreadsheet Shitlord Extraordinaire Luke “Arthur Putey” Akehurst described in almost fawning terms - “Really Nice Guy” - before he was imposed on the constituency of North Durham.

Also given a fawning write-up in the same paper has been Morgan McSweeney, readers told how he is supposedly considering only allowing sitting MPs to vote on a new Labour leader, should the need arise between General Elections. Which sounds like a reduction in democracy. So does the implication that General Election manifestos be effectively imposed.

... The New Elite 2 - Morgan McSweeney

He, the Guardian feature suggests, will be entitled to A Big Job, come the expected victory. After all, he and Uncool Hand Luke stayed and fought the dastardly Rotten Lefties™. One sincerely hopes that staying and fighting also included backing the party in the 2017 and 2019 General Elections. Because it is all too clear that some others did not. And that is beyond unforgivable.

This may induce in some readers a sense of Déjà Vu, that we have been here before. So we have. It was a baffling attribute of the New Labour project that the control freakery extended to imposing Their Selected People on electorates such as those in Wales, and Greater London.

Hence the digging in of heels to stop Rhodri Morgan becoming First Minister of Wales. This did not go well, Ron Davies embroiled in a scandal, and Alun Michael departing before a no confidence vote. Also not going well was Frank Dobson’s candidacy for Mayor of London. After Ken Livingstone left Labour and stood as an independent, he won. Dobson came third, behind Tory hopeful “Shagger” Norris. Control freakery has a record of not working.

What is also clear is that the new Entitled Elite has no problem with the bouts of flat-out lying that have come with Starmer’s leadership. The current leader made all manner of promises to get the job, and has since reneged on every one of them. But this does not concern the new Entitled Elite, for the same reason that right-wing lobbyists don’t care that they lied too.

That reason is that, as with Vote Leave and subsequent Brexit negotiations, too many people in that party bubble see it all as a game. Lying to secure the EU referendum vote? It’s only a game, we won, you lost, tee hee hee. So it is with the new Entitled Elite. Candidates kicked out in favour of loyal bag carriers? We won, you lost, tee hee hee. But here a problem enters.

It’s not a game for tens of millions of screwed over voters. Just a thought.