Speccy Goes From Nelly To Oiky

And so the increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine was sold for a cool £100 million to Paul Marshall, the main benefactor of hugely loss-making Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”). Former Murdoch editor Andrew Neil was first out the door, apparently voluntarily. He has now been followed by long-term editor Fraser Nelson, perhaps not voluntarily.

Out goes Fraser Nelson ...

The BBC has reported on Nelson not being sacked at all, to be succeeded by former failed politician and alleged journalist Michael “Oiky” Gove, telling its readers “Former government minister Michael Gove is to be the new editor of The Spectator, after the magazine was bought by hedge fund tycoon and GB News-backer Sir Paul Marshall”. We are reminded of Gove’s past.

“Mr Gove, who stepped down from Parliament at the general election, was a journalist before he became a Conservative MP”. And his appointment will be waved through. “He will start the job after final approval from Acoba, the advisory committee on business appointments which advises former ministers when they take jobs after leaving the government”.

There was more. “Mr Gove replaces Fraser Nelson [who] will continue to write for The Spectator and will become associate editor … Mr Nelson called Mr Gove ‘the clear successor’ to replace him … ‘He’s a first-class journalist who took a detour into politics and not (as so often happens) the other way around,’ he wrote”. And then came the Oh What A Giveaway moment.

“There's never a good time to leave a job like mine but, after 15 years and a new owner with big ambitions, there is an obvious time”. Which is code for I Got Sacked. New publisher Freddy Sayers let us know that "the magazine's non-executive Chairman would be Charles Moore, a former Spectator editor [who] would have ‘the specific brief of safeguarding editorial independence and the soul of the publication’”. His soul is indeed our soul.

Charles Moore will do Sweet Jack to get in the way of whatever direction the new owner chooses for the Speccy. Which brings us to the question of why Nelson - whose tenure as editor has been a financial success story, whatever one might think of the content - should be binned in favour of Gove.

... and in comes Oiky

Were I a betting man, the money would be going on the answer to that question being Scary Muslims™. But, one might ask, why? Nelson has published some serious Islamophobic bigotry over the years, from the likes of Doug Murray The K, Rod Liddle, Mark Steyn, and indeed the aforementioned Charles Moore. All this is true. But here, Gove is in a class of his own.

He is, after all, the author of Celsius 7/7, for which the Wiki entry notes “Although, according to [Damian] Thompson, Celsius 7/7 provides a useful analysis of Western 'appeasers' of militant Islam, by and large comparing the war on terror to a war against a totalitarian ideology is ‘misleading’, and even dangerous”. Author and critic William Dalrymple went rather further.

He “has attacked the book as a ‘confused epic of simplistic incomprehension’ and pointed out that contrary to claims on the book's jacket that Gove was an authority on Islamist terror, he had in fact never lived or travelled in any Islamic country, knew little about Islamic history or theology, and showed no sign of having met or talked to any Muslims”. So who would defend “Oiky”?

He was “vigorously defended” by none other than Melanie “not just Barking but halfway to Upminster” Phillips, and Stephen “Vicky” Pollard, the latter serving with less than total distinction as editor of the Jewish Chronicle, which has managed to attract several defamation suits and even the annoyance of sham press regulator IPSO for its occasional relationship with accuracy.

All of which suggests very strongly that, although Nelson published plenty of Muslim bashing copy, it may not have been enough for Marshall. Also, Gove has acquired the attribute of Very Clever Person during his time in politics, whether that is justified, or, more likely, not. A Muslim basher with the backing of other Muslim bashers is more likely to be what the new owner wants.

So farewell then Fraser Nelson, fired for not being Islamophobic enough.

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Labour - Tone Deaf In The Bubble

The Labour leadership should not need reminding of the promise brought by all those poll leads, only to result in an apathetic electorate giving them half a million fewer votes than in 2019, and a percentage increase in vote share of a measly 1.6%. Thus the reality of the party that had been transformed from a supposed basket case into an all-conquering electoral machine.

Had it not been for Reform UK Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his pals eating into the Tory vote share, Keir Starmer’s magnificent landslide majority would have been rather more modest. But at Labour’s Conference, held this year in Liverpool, no such consideration was allowed to enter. Nor were the latest and not at all favourable poll numbers.

So, given that fewer voters chose New New Labour than Labour as led by Jeremy Corbyn, how would Starmer and his pals approach their first Conference since the General Election? What would a pragmatic, sensible and indeed listening party have done? What would a party supposedly of the left have done? What would Nietzsche have done?

Sadly, it soon became clear that it was not about thinking of the poor, of a new left-leaning tide raising all boats, of making the obscenely overmonied begin to pay their taxes. Instead it was about another obscenity, that of freeloading on an industrial scale, with Starmer as chief culprit, scoring supposedly free clothes, specs, and a private box over at The Arsenal.

Others were on the take, too, with the lamest of excuses proferred in response to questioning. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson had accepted “free” tickets to see Taylor Swift earlier this year, excusing herself with "It was a hard one to turn down ... one of my children was keen to go”. Fine. So open yer wallet. Pay for it yerself. For one obvious reason.

To paraphrase Milton Friedman, there is no such thing as free clothes, or indeed free specs, free boxes at The Arsenal, or free Taylor Swift tickets. Someone, somewhere, has to pay for them. And what Milt may not have said, but I will, is that there is inevitably a Quid Pro Quo: that someone, somewhere is not practising altruism here. The gifts are all about leverage later on.

And it’s no good pointing at disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and reminding us that, in the 2019 Parliament, he managed to rack up more than six million notes’ worth of supposed freebies. We know Bozo was irretrievably bent, but it’s not good enough to be a little less bent. Labour should not be bent at all.

Nor should it be intolerant of dissent: as Rachel Reeves was delivering her speech, one young man stood up and heckled her, calling out “Stop selling arms to Israel”. Again the tone-deaf response: “This is a changed Labour Party. A Labour Party that represents working people, not a party of protest”. If you won’t listen to those in the real world, protest is all they have.

The young man was dragged out of the auditorium, with obvious marks on his neck to show for his trouble. Labour MSP Richard Leonard mused “Grabbing this protester by the throat was an unnecessary and disproportionate use of force. When Walter Wolfgang was manhandled out of the conference hall in 2005, the Labour Party apologised to him. We should do the same now”.

Walter Wolfgang was from the left, Bevanite, tradition. Would New New Labour have even let him remain in the party? After all, they’ve managed to expel an awful lot of Jewish members in pursuit of allegedly tackling anti-Semitism. Added to all of that, our free and fearless press is on Labour’s case as never before. Because New New Labour gave them an excuse.

Jeremy Corbyn would never have accepted all those freebies; he still sits with the rest of those ordinary paying fans at The Arsenal. But, in the looking-glass world of New New Labour, he is The Bad Guy and Keir Starmer is The Good Guy. So why d’you think Labour’s poll numbers have dropped like a stone in a very deep pool? D’you think the freebies have something to do with it?

You might conclude that they most certainly do. I couldn’t possibly comment.

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BBC Bozo And Laura K Shame

The BBC is not having a good time of it right now: quite apart from our free and fearless press relishing putting the boot in over anything to do with Huw Edwards, and the steady flow of claims about what may or may not happen behind the scenes at Strictly, there has been an entirely avoidable foot-in-mouth episode involving new political editor Chris Mason.

Mason discovered that Keir Starmer’s chief of staff Sue Gray was being paid more than the PM. Armed with this information, he continued as if in possession of the Scoop of the Century until Peter Oborne asked him, as one might, “How much do you get paid, Chris?” To which the answer was, rather more than either Ms Gray or Starmer, as Oborne proceeded to tell.

“The BBC political editor (260K pa) thinks it's a story that the Downing Street chief of staff (170K pa) earns more than the PM (167Kpa). Welcome to political journalism! PS Laura Kuenssberg is on 325K, Nick Robinson 340K and Fiona Bruce even more”. And with mention of Ms Kuenssberg, we arrive at the Beeb’s crowning moment of current abject shame.

Yesterday, she proclaimed “One for the diary”. And what would be an event of such major import that it might be added to the diary? This is where the BBC once again generates more questions than answers, because that event is “Boris Johnson - The Laura Kuenssberg Interview”, which gets the prime time slot of 1930 hours on Thursday 3 October. Aren’t you all lucky?

Here in Portugal, there are the more appealing alternatives of rolling news channels (that’s factual TV, as opposed to Bozo’s propensity to talk well, but lie badly), or the latest edition of O Preço Certo. Sadly, the UK will be subjected to disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson indulging in another bout of self-promotion and justification.

Mike Galsworthy was unimpressed. “Kuenssberg always seems unhealthily close to Boris Johnson. Given also Robbie Gibb’s continued role at the BBC - this interview smells of chums of Boris Johnson using our licence payer money to promote the man as his new book is coming out”. New book? What that? It is, imaginatively, titled simply “Unleashed”.

Harper Collins wants us to know “Unleashed is a candid, unrestrained, and revealing book by Boris Johnson, the Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. In Unleashed, Johnson takes readers through all the big decisions during his time in power and why he took them. The challenges and crises, how they were resolved - or not - and how he nearly died from COVID”.

Will it be available in the fiction section of one of the public libraries that have survived all those rounds of Tory cuts? Bozo, after all, is a congenital liar whose ability to generate spontaneous trouser ignition is matched only by Reform UK Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage. How long, one has to wonder, has it taken to legal Bozo’s bumper book of lame excuses?

Moreover, how much insight will Ms Kuenssberg bring to events such as turning 10 Downing Street into Party Central during the pandemic, or lying to the Queen in order to improperly prorogue Parliament, or bung eye-watering amounts of money to those providing dodgy PPE, or indeed tens of billions spaffed up the wall, to use Bozo’s happy phrase, on Not Testing And Tracing?

What about a Brexit deal that is slowly but inexorably turning the UK economy into a basket case? What of his trying to whitewash Chris Pincher’s behaviour, the event that finally exhausted the patience of even the Parliamentary Conservative Party? And what will we learn about the role of the press in covering the not inconsiderable Johnson arse?

But those are not reasons for the BBC promoting Bozo; quite the reverse. The real scandal here is that the Corporation is willingly making itself an accomplice to another Johnson money-making scheme, and, worse, an effort to promote someone who has already proved himself to be an utter failure as a politician, and indeed, a failure as a professional human being.

The BBC board should hang their heads in shame. But you know they won’t.

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Jewish Chronicle BUSTED

The old adage that something that looks too good be true probably is too good to be true may not have been in the thoughts of Jake Wallis Simons, currently editor of the Jewish Chronicle, when he made his fateful decision to publish several articles by Elon Perry. Much of their content was, it seems, what Wallis Simons wanted to hear. The problem was that it wasn’t true.

Jake Wallis Simons, a suitable candidate for resignation ...

As the BBC has reported, “The most contentious was a piece he wrote claiming a document showed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was planning to smuggle himself and some surviving Israeli hostages out of Gaza and to Iran, via the Philadelphi Corridor, a strip of land on the Gaza-Egypt border”.

There was more. “The article's claims appeared to be similar to talking points used by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to justify the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) presence in the Philadelphi Corridor. The story was followed up by media in Israel, and later shared by Netanyahu's son. According to the Times of Israel, the IDF subsequently said it had no knowledge of such a document existing”. And then it got worse.

Long-serving columnists decided they had had enough. “Jonathan Freedland, Hadley Freeman and David Aaronovitch announced they were quitting their columns over what Freedland described as a ‘great disgrace’ at the London-based newspaper. It comes after the JC said it conducted a ‘thorough investigation’ into one of its freelance journalists, Elon Perry, ‘after allegations were made about aspects of his record’”. Press misbehaviour redux.

At which point it has to be pointed out that, for the JC, this is not a first offence. As Hamza Yusuf reminded us, “The Jewish Chronicle was found to have breached the IPSO Editors’ Code of Practise 33 times in 3 years”. IPSO was asked to open a standards investigation into the JC. They declined.

As Alan Rusbridger noted, “Lord Faulks said this was partly because the paper had new owners … Not that he or anyone else knew who they were”. He also pointed out “Robbie Gibb’s BBC declaration of interest form registers that he is still 100 per cent owner of the [JC] though he claims to have resigned this summer”. Gibb is still a member of the BBC board.

Freedland, Aaronovitch, and Ms Freeman, though, remained with the JC when the title libelled Marc Wadsworth, claiming “that he was involved in an initiative to track down Jewish Labour activists at their private addresses in order to intimidate, threaten or harass them into silence”. Wadsworth instructed Carter Ruck. So it was expensive. And the JC lost.

... and Robbie Gibb, likewise

Rapper Lowkey remembered “I did a Fire in the Booth on BBC Radio 1 in 2017 in which I used the words ‘cosa nostra.’ The Jewish Chronicle lied that I used the phrase ‘kosher nostra’ and then lobbied the BBC relentlessly on the issue. Eventually the JC withdrew the lie from the headline and article”.

The JC’s Islamophobia has also been blatantly obvious, a recent example being “Imagine Corbyn with around 12 million Muslim votes to play with - that’s Mélenchon”. And then we come to Wallis Simons’ time at the Mail, where he was Associate Global Editor. There, he libelled Lord Sheikh.

Headlined “Top Tory peer’s appearance at Corbyn’s ‘hate conference’ in Tunisia comes after years of rubbing shoulders with Islamists, hate preachers and Holocaust deniers”, the article ended up with Associated Newspapers having to make an apology in open court. And Wallis Simons is still at it.

Last year, he Tweeted “Palestinian Muslims launch Ramadan attack on Church of the Annunciation in Beit Jala near Bethlehem”. The story was not true: he deleted the Tweet soon afterwards. There should be no questioning the assertion that Wallis Simons must resign. Or that Robbie Gibb should do likewise from the BBC board. Meanwhile, it should be borne in mind that Wallis Simons was the Mail’s main man for kicking Jeremy Corbyn.

So how much of that copy was partially, or wholly, untrue and/or defamatory? The JC was also in the vanguard of smearing Corbyn, kicking off its campaign in no style at all by proclaiming the then Labour leader to be “Anti-Semitic and a racist”. Jezza was neither of those things, but the mud stuck, not least because, as we now know, a significant part of his own party was briefing against him in an effort, ultimately, to throw the 2019 election.

Maybe the Jewish Chronicle was for a time, but not for all time. One thing is for certain: its best chance of survival is without Jake Wallis Simons.

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Corbyn Bashing Becoming Tedious

Guardian Media Group has, of late, done an exceptional service to those who wondered just how convinced of their stance were the people who now wield power within the Labour Party. And the answer is that they are not convincing others, nor are they convincing themselves. Hence the constant stream of articles attempting to justify their factionalism and disloyalty.

Keir Starmer, and ...

The latest of these has come in today’s Observer, under the by-line of Anushka Asthana, who has, it seems, written a whole book around the subject of New New Labour, which sounds like something worth avoiding. The article is described as an “exclusive”, which is a bit rich, considering it’s the media group she usually writes for. So what’s the schtick?

“‘Corbyn had flown too close to the sun’: how Labour insiders battled the left and plotted the party’s path back to power … Exclusive extract from new book says Corbyn’s appearance at Glastonbury was a key moment in the party’s long way back to power. And as one anti-Corbyn group tried to build a moderate coalition, it also needed a credible leader”. Do go on.

“Some in Labour make fun of the idea that Corbyn supporters treat the 2017 general election like a victory when, in fact, it was a loss. But in reality, the Labour leader had defied his detractors who were expecting a repeat of Michael Foot’s 1983 election drubbing and instead watched Corbyn strip Theresa May of her parliamentary majority”. And there was more.

“Moreover, Corbyn had won 40% of the national vote, more than the 35% that handed Tony Blair a significant majority in 2005”. And who is the main protagonist here? As if you need to ask. “Meanwhile, some 130 miles away in a south London park, Morgan McSweeney was sitting on a bench, thinking about what the scene at Glastonbury meant for his new job”. And more.

“Labour Together, as the operation became known, was explicitly not about trying to defeat Corbyn through any internal coup - they now considered that to be impossible. But it would try to defeat Corbynism … McSweeney was among those who took the 2017 result very seriously and believed that Corbyn, whose politics he despised, could win the next election”.

Oh what a giveaway! Gives the lie to all the “unelectable under any scenario” drivel. Then came claims of anti-Semitism: Labour Together “identified problem posts in hundreds of Facebook groups with links to either the party or leftwing politics …They then farmed out the posts they uncovered to journalists who were … reporting on rising evidence of antisemitism”.

... his unconvincing enabler Morgan McSweeney

Links to? Meaning what? Were these posts by Labour members? If not, that would have been smears. But it was working: “Together with a row over whether the party would adopt all the examples linked to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, the scandal was becoming increasingly destabilising for Corbyn”.

Plus this nugget: “McSweeney had an aim - to schmooze the Guardian and kill the Canary. ‘Destroy the Canary or the Canary destroys us’”. And? “As part of a ‘Stop funding fake news’ campaign, they took screenshots of articles they felt had either racist or fake content, then posted messages on Twitter aimed at brands that were advertising on the websites’ pages”.

That wasn’t all. Was “stop funding fake news” the campaign of the same name that had a seriously dodgy privacy policy and made claims about its successes that it failed to stand up? It was, after all, regularly targeting sites like The Canary (and Evolve Politics). Was it going after fake news, or merely trying to defund sites whose politics it disliked? No word on that one.

And the result? A measly 33.7% of the popular vote. The excuse? “Those who opted to vote ‘tactically’ for the Lib Dems where they could beat Tories, but also others deciding to go with their ‘hearts’ by voting for the Greens or independents in the certainty that Starmer would be prime minister”. No admission that today’s authoritarian Labour has alienated activists.

So what is the legacy of “Labour Together”? A leader whose dishonesty in getting the Top Job - and since getting it - has been exceeded only by Reform UK Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage. An increasingly authoritarian party which has claimed to be hot on anti-Semitism, while expelling rather a lot of Jewish members. And don’t mention that “hierarchy of racism”.

Another day, another apologia. They got a landslide, and that means they were right. Right to smear the Canary. Right to egg on the idea that Labour had come over all anti-Semitic. No mention that when Corbyn said the latter problem had been exaggerated, he was right. Stripped of the whip for making a factually correct statement. The looking glass world of New New Labour.

Pity about the freezing pensioners and the poorest young families, mind.

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Labour, Pensioners, And Cruelty

One hates to come over all Neil Kinnock, but right now we have A Labour Chancellor - A Labour Chancellor - scuttling around media outlets trying pointlessly to justify taking pensioners’ winter fuel allowance from them. It is a move which, it is claimed, will placate The City. But The City does not need to be placated. And the move will hurt the Labour Party yet more.

That’s as in, more than the two child benefit cap. More than the alienation of now former activists following the abandonment of Keir Starmer’s “ten points” pledge. More than the alienation following all the expulsions and other needlessly authoritarian behaviour. More members walking away, and not returning any time soon to help canvass and leaflet.

A Government with a huge majority, but only because of parties like Reform UK, domain of Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, eating into the Tory vote. Labour’s share of the popular vote, after posting opinion poll ratings well into the 40s during the campaign, was a miserable 33.7%. 1.6% better than 2019. 6.3% down on 2017. Less than convincing.

And, coming hard on the heels of the refusal to lift the benefit cap, has come another measure guaranteed to generate No Additional Economic Activity At All. As this blog has pointed out more than once, giving the less well off more money is a sure-fire way to generate more economic activity. These are the people with the highest propensity to spend. They will spend that money.

It is no use at all to anyone interested in generating more economic activity to allow that money to be retained by the very well off, those with the highest propensity to save. It is also no use at all to stretch peoples’ credibility beyond its structural limit by claiming that leaving the winter fuel allowance in place will somehow precipitate a run on Sterling, which it will not.

Add to this the pointless misquoting of Keynes, seemingly to suggest that he would have approved of Rachel Reeves’ policies (which he certainly would not), and the authoritarian response of the Labour leadership to anyone demonstrating the slightest empathy towards the least well-off (vote for this cruelty or you lose the whip), and you have a party in imminent disarray.

No surprise, then, to see Zarah Sultana reminding us “We need to defend universalism. Universal benefits like Winter Fuel Payments & demands like Free School Meals for All ensure no-one falls through the cracks. It builds solidarity, reminding us that we all belong to the same society & deserve warmth, food security & dignity”. And avoids the humiliation of means tests.

And Richard Murphy telling “I am so bored of hearing Labour ministers talking about ‘difficult decisions’ they didn’t want to take when there is no reason whatsoever for them to have taken them”. With Mick Lynch of the RMT adding “We cannot balance the books by cutting off the heating for our pensioners. Labour has to find a better, fairer way”.

On top of that is the inevitable charge of hypocrisy, Paul Lewis bringing the inconvenient reminder “Chancellor tells her MPs to blame Conservatives for her decision to raid Winter Fuel Payment … so she is blaming the party that in 2017 said it would do that but backed down when Labour said it would kill 4000 pensioners. Oh dear”. This whole charade is pointless.

Worse for Labour, the steady alienation of members will only accelerate. It was clear during the General Election campaign that some constituencies would have gone to The Red Team, if only more canvassers and other activists could have been mustered. Next time, there will most likely be even fewer of them. Added to a disheartened and disillusioned electorate.

Who suggested this path? Did anyone in Downing Street, or any of those advising the Labour leadership, bother to think through what consequences might flow from imposing more misery on the least well off? One has to credit the brains behind New New Labour with the notion that, if they did all this to a deliberate plan, they must have also figured a way out of it.

Because if they haven’t - no. Just no. You don’t want to go there.

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Grenfell - Westminster’s Shame

“The simple truth is that the deaths that occurred were all avoidable, and those who lived in the tower were badly failed, over a number of years, and in a number of different ways, by those who were responsible for ensuring the safety of the building and its occupants”. Thus the words of Martin Moore-Bick, who chaired the inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire. There was more.

“They include the Government, the tenant management organisation, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, those who manufactured and supplied materials used in the refurbishment, those who certified their suitability for use on high rise buildings, the architect, the principal contractor, and some of its sub-contractors”. 72 deaths, and every one avoidable.

Worse, deputy PM Angela Rayner has noted that “Of 4,630 buildings identified with dangerous cladding, 50% are in remediation works”. However, “only 29% have had the remediation completed”. Moreover, there is a “culture in this country where [tenants] are considered lesser people, and that's disgraceful”. So one might think the Government is taking this seriously.

But one would have thought wrong, if the scenes in Parliament immediately prior to Keir Starmer’s statement on Grenfell are anything to go by. This came after Prime Minister’s Questions; for this event, the Commons chamber is packed out. But then, after PMQs concluded, the Commons began to empty.

In fact, it was more of an exodus: scores, if not hundreds, of MPs from both sides of the House making themselves scarce before Starmer made his statement. Some commentators recoiled at this display of indifference, one of those being ITV political editor Robert Peston, who was simply aghast.

“I was genuinely a bit upset, actually, when I looked at the chamber. Actually, vast numbers of MPs simply left after Prime Minister’s Questions, that was not … I thought, for this statement, it would be bursting at the seams with MPs - it wasn’t. There were lots and lots of empty seats there, and I was quite shocked by that, actually. I mean, this was one of … Grenfell, for I think anybody … who’s not a child, was one of the defining moments in this country’s history, of the last thirty years”. He was not alone.

Over on BBC Newsnight, Vice-Chair of Grenfell United Karim Mussilhy told “The Prime Minister’s about to give [his statement] … you just see a flourish of bodies in Parliament heading out, leaving … that room was more than half empty. This is the culture we’re talking about. How are we supposed to get justice when they don’t even care”. Even some new MPs walked out.

Easily identifiable by his gait, his appearance, and indeed his walking stick, was Labour’s “spreadsheet overlord” Luke Akehurst. Those no longer welcome in a Labour Party where Akehurst and his pals wield power were reduced to making their voices heard from outside the Commons. One of their number was former MP Emma Dent Coad, who did not mince her words.

“What we want is very clear lines of accountability ... we need to know who is actually accountable, who made the decisions ... and who can be pinned down and charged. Most people, when I talk to them, they want to see people in jail”. But she’s a Rotten Leftie™, and they get the blame dumped on them.

As I noted at the time, the assembled idiocy of the Tory right blamed her, Sadiq Khan, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour councillors, and definitely not anyone who had anything to do with The Blue Team - people like Eric Pickles, who wanted the Grenfell Inquiry to know that he was a very busy man, and had had to work terribly hard to fit his visit to that inquiry into his diary.

Corbyn said in the aftermath of the Grenfell fire that it “should never have happened. Every single one of those deaths could and should have been avoided”. Now, the game playing faction of Labour’s NEC just walks out of the Commons before Starmer makes his statement on the inquiry. Anyone might think that they didn’t give a flying foxtrot about ordinary people.

Who is it MPs are supposed to represent? Looking at the Commons scenes, one might think some of them would have a problem answering that one.

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Israel Arms Row - Labour Clueless

Labour, now the party of Government, has had almost eleven months to formulate a coherent response to what the IDF is doing in Gaza, and increasingly, in the occupied West Bank. Instead, Keir Starmer has come over as yet another rabbit caught in the headlights, even agreeing that imposing collective punishment on the Palestinians was acceptable.

Yesterday, after months of mass gatherings in solidarity with the Palestinians, and knowing that Israel is likely to be committing genocide as it bombs, rockets, shells and snipes its way across Gaza, Foreign Secretary David Lammy at last declared that some export licenses for arms to Israel were being suspended, as it was suspected international law had been breached.

But 30 out of 350 licenses bing suspended won’t stop the IDF routinely blowing women and children to pieces, and summarily incinerating others, although it has induced a ridiculously overdramatic response. The increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph howled “Israel furious as UK ‘rewards Hamas’ by halting arms sales”. This is total drivel.

The real story here is that Labour is bereft of the ability to actually take action, on whatever front. This row comes hard on the heels of the economically illiterate claim that leaving pensioners with their winter fuel payment would have induced a run on Sterling. Economics is, surprise, surprise, not the only area where Labour is proving bereft of ideas, now that it’s in Government.

How have we come to this? To no surprise at all, the signs have been there for several months, if only anyone had focused on them, rather than looking where the new, shiny, centrist, low-risk, not even slightly left, honestly, Labour power brokers want them to look. Once again, our free and fearless press has been absent elsewhere, with broadcasters faring little better.

It is the Guardian, unswerving friend of Newest New Labour, that has provided the clues as to why the Government is so utterly clueless, in two fawning articles covering two leading figures in the party. First, master organiser Morgan McSweeney, and “his long crusade to expunge Corbynism from the Labour party”. We know what he’s against. But what is he for?

Make decisions? Er ... 

Whatever. Also, “He has shown little sentiment for those candidates and activists pushed aside in his pursuit of that aim”. We won, you lefties lost, tee hee hee, aren’t we brilliant? There was little difference in the profile of “Spreadsheet Shitlord” Luke Akehurst, “wrest[ing] control of the [NEC], conference agenda and [CLPs] from the Corbynite left”. We won. Hee hee!

During the General Election campaign, we saw what that meant. The Gaza cluelessness translated into independent candidates either frightening the crap out of Labour incumbents who thought they were home and hosed, or in some cases defeating them. And a paltry 33.7% of the popular vote.

The Guardian piece on McSweeney tells us a little as to why there is this vacuum in Government policy. “Starmer was earmarked as a prospect early on. At a Labour Together dinner for journalists shortly after the 2015 election, [Steve] Reed, Lisa Nandy, McSweeney and others were holding court when it became clear that a special guest was about to be introduced: Starmer. ‘It felt like he was the heir apparent. He was their best prospect and they had chosen him rather than the other way around,’ one source said”.

There is more. “McSweeney’s critics on the left say he and Starmer essentially came to positions of power through a mission to deceive Labour members, to ape the popular parts of Corbynism with 10 pledges they never intended to enact and then to wage a factional war”. And replace them with?

The result is that vacuum, an inability to actually respond to voters’ concerns, to Supermac’s “events, dear boy, events”. When Owen Jones said “The truth is the Labour Right haven't had any coherent ideas for a very long time, and they just used Starmer as their frontman”, he was right, and had the media looked in the right place, they would have seen it all coming.

But Maggie’s painting! Oasis tickets! Strictly! We have a governing party better at playing factional games than governing. And a useless media.

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Labour And A Bad Landlord

Remember all those deselection scare stories put about by bad faith actors when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader? All the claims of constituencies having candidates imposed, sitting MPs of inconvenient thought being removed, alleged “Trots” substituted? It made for lots of scary copy. It was also total horseshit. But since Jezza stood down? Ah well.

Jas Athwal

While one particularly blatant attempt to remove a left-leaning MP failed (that being Ian Byrne in Liverpool West Derby), there was an especially fractious deselection in Ilford South, with incumbent Sam Tarry being forcibly replaced by local council leader Jas Athwal. This may have met with approval from those holding power in the Labour Party, but was not well thought through.

Tarry had been disciplined for having the audacity to stand on a picket line with his fellow Trades Unionists. The incident, which happened at London’s Euston station, clearly got his card marked. And while the game-playing adolescents who hold sway in The Red Team might have thought they’d put one over on the Rotten Lefties™, the deselection has returned to bite them.

Because Jas Athwal is now in a whole load of trouble, and for reasons that are causing serious embarrassment to Labour. Athwal owns properties (plural), which are rented out. Yes, he is a landlord. As the BBC has reported, “Jas Athwal, the newly-elected MP for Ilford South, owns 15 rental flats, making him the biggest landlord in the House of Commons”. There was more.

“A Labour MP rents out flats with black mould and ant infestations, the BBC has discovered”. Oh dear. Do go on. “In one block of seven flats owned by Mr Athwal nearly half the tenants said they had to regularly clean their bathroom ceilings to remove mould. Mr Athwal has now also admitted his flats do not have the correct property licences required under a scheme he introduced as Redbridge Council leader. He had earlier claimed to the BBC that he had complied with the rules”. Didn’t follow his own rules. Lied to the Beeb.

But all would be well, because there would be remedial action. “Mr Athwal said he was ‘shocked’ and ‘profoundly sorry’ to hear of residents' issues, which he had not been aware of due to the properties being managed by an agency, and promised repairs and maintenance will be completed ‘swiftly’”.

So no more “When [the BBC] visited the properties, which are above an empty shop in Ilford, the communal areas were dirty and the lights did not work. Fire alarms were hanging loose from the ceiling, and a washing machine had been dumped next to a set of stairs”, then?

And no more “On top of the black mould, the BBC saw evidence of ant infestations in a number of the seven properties” either? Maybe realising he was in deep doo-doo, Athwal let it be known that he was dispensing with the services of his letting agent. But he has convinced very few people.

Also, the BBC noted “[Athwal] added he did not take on tenants on housing benefit to avoid conflicts of interest with his role as the local council leader”, which is against equality law. Small wonder his protestations fell on deaf ears, with the word “Resign” featuring prominently in responses. Moreover, the impression was given that Athwal only took action because he got caught.

Meanwhile, Mish Raman - who sits on Labour’s NEC - mused “I am shocked and sickened that a mould and ant infested property owning slum landlord has the Labour whip while the likes of Apsana Begum, Zarah Sultana, Ian Byrne don't because they voted to remove the two child benefit cap … Keir Starmer's high quality candidate”. Athwal really should resign his seat.

And those at the top of the Labour Party should be pressing him to do so. But then a problem enters: Ilford South should be an ultra-safe seat, but Athwal’s majority was less than 7,000, and he scored just over 40% of the vote, as opposed to Tarry’s 2019 24,000 and 65.6% respectively. The humiliation of losing that seat will have Labour’s power brokers recoiling in horror.

Not winning Chingford and Woodford Green, being handed their arses by Jeremy Corbyn - well, Labour game players, do you feel … lucky?

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Anti-Migration Fan Now A Migrant

Some have left the UK for well thought out reasons - and with all due modesty, I include myself in that category - while others have departed for reasons dependent on their ability to reinvent reality. In the latter category, we see Plastic Padré Calvin Robinson, who is staunchly, even virulently, opposed to immigration, making an exception for Himself Personally Now.

Calvin Robinson

Robinson, an appallingly immodest being with much to be modest about, has had a chequered recent career: he was a governor at the Michaela School in Wembley (yes, the one where Katharine Birbalsingh is head teacher), but then he wasn’t; he was a senior fellow at wacko right-wing lobby group Policy Exchange, but then wasn’t, and trained for the clergy with the C of E.

But then he wasn’t C of E either, ending up in the Nordic Catholic Church, which really exists, but very few have heard of. He espouses the kinds of views that get folks an entry to media outlets like Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”), but they sacked him for siding with the deeply unpleasant Dan Wootton. The press still likes him, though.

That includes the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, the Mail titles, and online outlets like Spiked, so named because it should have been long ago. He has espoused Islamophobia, passed severely adverse comment upon anything he can label as “woke”, and above all he has opposed immigration. Then came his defining moment of rank hypocrisy.

Yes, he was about to do a little immigration of his own. Here’s the schtick, first the Tweet: “It is with a heavy heart that I announce I am leaving the United Kingdom. Starmer's dark Satanic Mills are not for me. But I will be back. For now, it is time to regroup. I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand”. Full of crap as usual. And the longer version?

“I mentioned at the end of the last show … that I am looking to leave the United Kingdom … I have been called to a parish elsewhere. I will announce where when it’s appropriate … it’s been accelerated by the current state of affairs in the United Kingdom … it doesn’t feel like people are ready to fight yet, there aren’t enough people awake yet”. Wow! Zap! DULL!

And there is more. “It feels like, in other parts of the world, there are people who still believe in freedom, still believe in Christ, and are willing to fight for what’s right, and I’m hoping that in joining them, and becoming a soldier among many, that we can regroup, we can build an army (speaking metaphorically). We need to be stronger, as Christians, as Brits”.

Sadly, he may be back. “I will make a stand in the next General Election, but in the meantime, I’m going to work as a full-time parish priest in a parish elsewhere. London is no longer safe [no citation], I have moved out of London, I’m a nomad at the moment, floating around without a home, but I’ve been offered a home, and am going to serve and administer to good people, good faithful people [and] hope to come back stronger”. Yeah, right.

Not so much giving one another a sign of peace as peace off. So where’s he going? Ah well. That we do not get to know - yet. Maybe he’s just having an extended visit to Ireland; after all, they (mostly) speak English, so he won’t have a language problem. Perhaps he’s off to mainland Europe.

Well, so long as he doesn’t rock up anywhere in the Greater Lisbon area. One rumour currently circulating is that Calv is bound for Spain; perhaps he will minister to the likes of Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, who does appear to be indulging in the kind of sinful behaviour which may be tempered by a little more confession, and a little less grifting.

But few in the UK will miss him. The media opportunities will all too rapidly be taken over by another in the seemingly endless line of far right gobshites; one more stinking hypocrite only serves to show how full of the proverbial so many out there on the right really are. Immigration, for them, is the reddest of red lines, except when they choose to rewrite the rules in their favour.

One more rabid rat is now leaving the sinking ship. Just rejoice at that news.

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