Oh Tommy - The Bard Of Belmarsh

And so it came to pass that Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, was taken from Police custody to Woolwich Crown Court to face charges of Contempt of Court. Lennon had been told not to repeat untrue comments about a Syrian teenager, Jamal Hidazi. He ignored the ruling and repeated the untrue comments. A lot.

Yes, the same person who rocked up on my doorstep in the dead of night and claimed - dishonestly - that I had “told lies about him” had been told, by a Judge, not to repeat lies he had been telling about a teenager who just happened to be one of those Scary Muslims™. The BBC report tells you all you need to know about the case, and why Lennon has now been jailed.

“The hearing on Monday was the culmination of events that date back to October 2018. That month, a video went viral showing how Jamal Hijazi, a Syrian in West Yorkshire, had been attacked by another teenager at school. Yaxley-Lennon then posted his own response to one million Facebook followers alleging that his investigation had established that Mr Hijazi was a violent thug, a claim that was untrue”. And there was more.

“The Yaxley-Lennon video spread widely and the Syrian teenager and his family received death threats. Three years later, Mr Hijazi won £100,000 in damages when the High Court ruled Yaxley-Lennon’s claims against him had amounted to defamation. The court imposed an injunction on Yaxley-Lennon, banning him from making the false claims again”. So what did he do?

“In February 2023, Yaxley-Lennon, who founded the long-defunct English Defence League (EDL), began repeating the claims and went on to post online a film claiming he had been ‘silenced’ by the state. That film may have been viewed at least 47 million times”. Very brave of him. Or maybe not.

Because, as the report also tells, “Eventually, this July, the anti-Islam activist showed the film to thousands of his supporters in London's Trafalgar Square, saying he would not be silenced. The following day he left the country”. Only now had he returned. The Judge was especially severe on Lennon.

“Jailing Yaxley-Lennon for 18 months, Mr Justice Johnson said: ‘In a democratic society underpinned by the rule of law, court orders must be obeyed … Nobody is above the law. Nobody can pick or choose which laws or which injunctions they obey, or which they do not. Even if they believe that an injunction is... contrary to their views they must comply with the injunction’”. So out came Lennon’s fans to redefine reality in his favour.

There were attacks on the court artist, because Lennon and his fans did not consider the likeness to their taste. There were appeals for more money, despite Lennon having pleaded guilty, which fact was also ignored by his faithful followers, who have decided he is a “political prisoner”.

Talk of “two tier” policing, justice, and of course Keir Starmer, followed. And the deeply sinister calls for the Judge’s hard drive to be examined, because, well, you know, nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat. Worse, the attacks on the Judge have featured his photo, as well as demands to know where he lives. Which, one hopes, is being gathered up by Hope not Hate.

One might be disappointed to see that group being distracted from Lennon and the rest of the populist far right by whining at those showing empathy for innocent civilians in Palestine and Lebanon being blown to pieces, incinerated, targeted randomly by snipers for shits and giggles, bulldozed, and all the rest of the bad behaviour indulged in by the IDF.

Stephen Lennon is not a political prisoner. He is not a fearless independent journalist exposing the truth. He has not exposed grooming gangs. He has not exposed corruption. He broke the law, and the law won. So he has been transferred to Belmarsh Prison, where, who knows, perhaps he will write a book about his struggle. While the rest of the world forgets about him.

The time of Stephen Lennon was for a time, but not for all time. Now he has been banged up and can harass no-one. Just rejoice at that news.

Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by becoming a Patron on Patreon at

https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton

Oh Tommy - Wheels Coming Off

And so it came to pass that Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, arrived back in the UK from his brief exile in Spain, and was not nicked. He was pleasantly surprised, and continued to promote his rally in London, scheduled for today. But into each life a little rain must fall, and for Lennon it came pouring as he journeyed to Folkestone yesterday.

The Great Man had been instructed to surrender himself to the cops at the town’s Police station. This he duly did, and was charged under the Terrorism Act, having declined to give the rozzers his phone’s PIN. But all was not lost: he was bailed in advance of a future court appearance. Then came the really bad news: he was nicked again, and this time he wasn’t walking free.

Having skipped the meanings hearing for his Contempt of Court charge, what is called a Bench Warrant had been issued for his arrest. And what better place to execute said warrant than down the cop shop? Lennon was then remanded in custody, to the great relief of all those people who wished it had happened rather earlier. So what happens to his London victory rally?

And this is where the wheels began to come off. “ADMIN POST - TOMMY HAS BEEN SENT TO PRISON!!!” told his account on Twitter, X, or whatever Muskrat’s calling it this week. But Lennon had not been sent to prison: he had been remanded in custody, which is not the same thing. And his delegate confirmed this: "We can confirm that Tommy is now being held on remand until Monday where he will appear at Woolwich Crown Court at 10am”.

But his rally would go ahead. “Demo day has arrived, sadly without Tommy in attendance, however we'd like to reiterate his message, to stay calm, don't react to provocation, we're here not only for him, but most importantly to pay respects to Peter Lynch, and support the families of the political prisoners”.

Lynch was one of those jailed for violent disorder in the wake of riots earlier this year, who later died in prison. He is therefore now a cause celèbre for the far right. He pleaded guilty; he was not a “political prisoner”. This means nothing to Lennon and his hangers-on, though, for whom the law must be applied in full for Scary Muslims™, but not for white people.

So what effect did Lennon’s detainment on the Kent Coast have on the list of the great and the good prepared to speak at his rally? Minor thesp, failed chanteur and not-even-getting-out-of-the-noise-floor politician Laurence Fox perused that list and decided that they were not significant enough people to warrant the presence of Himself Personally Now. He would not be attending.

Lennon’s adoring fans have not taken the news at all well. Also, the level of paranoia has reached new heights among them, exemplified by someone using the Twitter handle “No to ECHR & ILLEGALS … No to BBC Licence Fee” whining “Just had our coach from Leicester CANCELLED!!!!! THIS GOVERNMENT ARE A COMPLETE JOKE!!!” As if.

Yet the faithful will still turn up, still pony up their hard-earned cash, still watch Lennon’s tedious videos, with their distant relationship to reality. Brendan May mused “To all Tommy Robinson fans - he's being held in prison until Monday, so this is a reminder that now is the time to send him all your savings again, so he can spend it on his next luxury holiday to Cyprus next year. You know what to do!” LBC host James O’Brien was on the same page.

“I have been arrested, please send me your money … I have not been arrested, please send me your money … I am on holiday in a very expensive hotel, please send me your money … I am not on holiday in a very expensive hotel, please send me your money … Nice ‘work’ if you can get it”.

One Tweeter summed up the whole charade: “Tommy Robinson moved the date of this far-right march to coincide with his court date & handed himself in knowing he’d be detained. This gives him endless excuses to play victim for the knuckledraggers & gives Laurence Fox an excuse to pull out. Tommy Cultists - you got played”. Lennon has taken them all for mugs.

The law may have finally caught up with Stephen Lennon. That is all.

Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by becoming a Patron on Patreon at

https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton

Israel - USA Has To Call Time

As I’ve noted previously, time was when the state of Israel got a free pass, whatever its armed forces and security agencies got up to. A small country with so many hostile neighbours, who would rather it did not exist at all. So it was when the IDF fired first in the Six Day War; likewise the retaliation to the Yom Kippur attacks. But the free pass no longer holds.

So when the response to October 2023’s Hamas attack went way beyond going after the perpetrators, protests began in earnest. They have not ceased since, as most of Gaza has been reduced to a rubble-strewn wasteland, with indiscriminate bombing, rocketing and shelling of civilians continuing round the clock, for apparently no more than shits and giggles.

But those who could stop the killing, the maiming, and the destruction of health and even water supplies, with little or no aid getting through to those in need, did nothing. This included Governments in North America and throughout Europe, the chief culprit being that in Washington, DC. Israel gets away with it, it carries on killing. It gets away with it again, so carries on again.

The Biden administration could call time on what has become a rogue state, whose defenders howl down those of inconvenient thought by smearing them as anti-Semites, attempting to have them removed from jobs, or deselected from being able to run for re-election. But here a problem enters: the people are not listening to their leaders’ attempts to smear those showing empathy.

And the people are in no mood to let pass the horrifying litany of armed forces using tens of thousands of human beings for target practice. So exporting lethal weaponry to Israel so that it can be used to blow people to bits, incinerate hospital patients, and bury many more under the remains of collapsed buildings is generating growing and sincere opposition.

What fuels the opposition in ever-growing amounts is the way those acting on behalf of the Israeli state, after getting away with shelling, bombing and rocketing defenceless civilians, push the boundaries a bit further, hence the shelling, bombing and rocketing moving on to helpless hospital patients. And they got away with that. So now the offensive has moved to Lebanon.

Yes, to another sovereign country. Not the occupied territories, although that was unforgivable enough. Now, entire suburbs of Beirut, populated once again by defenceless civilians, are being levelled, while the leaders of the supposedly civilised West do nothing. Those leaders do not even say Boo in response to the latest, and probably lamest, Israeli excuse note.

Levelling apartment blocks in Beirut was because of a bank. As the BBC has reported, “At least 16 airstrikes were recorded across Lebanon against buildings with Al-Qard al-Hassan (AQAH) branches, Lebanon’s state media reports, including two strikes close to Beirut airport”. Yeah, right.

Let’s just stop and think for a moment. If someone were to take out a couple of dozen branches of Barclays, NatWest, RBS, Lloyds, or whoever, would that have any effect on the capacity of those banks to make loans or provide other financial services? In any case, AQAH has said “there was no cash at branches to be destroyed by Israeli strikes”. This is yet another lame excuse for terrorising civilians. And it’s high time it was stopped.

Some bemoan the fracturing of political allegiance, with Tories losing ground to the more forthright bigotry of Reform UK, and Labour leaking the support it took for granted to Independents, the Greens and others. Still our Government blethers about Israel having the right to defend itself. But this went beyond self-defence long ago. This is genocidal action with intent.

And it is action which that supposedly civilised West is enabling by sitting there and doing nothing. What happens next? Bombing, shelling and rocketing a bit more of Beirut? Trashing the city’s international airport? Destroying the port facilities? Massacring some UN peacekeepers?

The USA contributes the most to the Israeli war machine. So it’s the USA that has to tell the Israeli Government to desist. Sooner rather than later.

Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by becoming a Patron on Patreon at

https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton

Farage Migrant Threat = MORE LIES

Maintaining his public profile is proving challenging to occasional MP and Reform UK Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage. So it was that The Great Man decided to resort to what he does best - talking well, but lying badly. This was accomplished by claiming that someone who is not in the UK had in fact arrived in the UK, and made a death threat against him.

Also, the target of Farage’s latest pack of lies was one of those Not White Chappies, he had a distinctive gun tattoo, and was most likely one of those Scary Muslims™. So, including a video from the Not White Person, off went Nige. “This illegal migrant has made a threat on my life and is now in the UK. He is the kind of person we are letting into our country”. This was not true.

There was no illegality, the individual concerned was not a migrant to the UK, because, whisper it quietly, he was not (yet) in the UK. So he was not “the kind of person we are letting into our country”. So far, so straightforward, and so dishonest. Farage being a racist bigot, congenital liar, and con man, film at 11. The lie was so blatant that not even his own media outlet was buying it.

Yes, Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”), being thus far the only broadcaster or press source to report on Farage’s latest lies, could not stand up his claims. His followers on Twitter, X, or whatever Muskrat is calling it this week, lapped it up, though, some asking Mr Thirsty when he was going to join the calls for mass deportation. That’s as in mass deportation of people who are not white and/or are Scary Muslims™.

So over to GB News. “Nigel Farage has claimed an ‘illegal migrant’ has made a threat on his life after a video showed a young man making aggressive hand gestures while talking about the Reform UK leader”. Aggressive hand gestures? Ooh yes, that’s an instant deportation. In Farage world, that is.

Do go on. “The Clacton MP, who was twice assaulted on the 2024 General Election campaign, broke his silence on the heavily-circulated footage tonight”. Broke wind more like. It’s just attention seeking. Have another go. “Farage had earlier highlighted how TikToker Mada Pasa was posting about his attempt to reach the UK by crossing the Channel”. And?

“Pasa, who is believed to originate from Afghanistan, posted more than 60 videos about his journey across Europe … He gained nearly 20,000 followers, amassing 230,000 likes and millions of views”. Yes? Yes yes? Yes yes yes? “There was no evidence from the video to suggest Pasa has reached British shores”. Even GB News admits Farage is lying.

But there was more. “The Reform UK leader also shared Pasa's video which was riddled with expletives … During the video, Pasa said: ‘English man Nigel. Don't talk s**t about me. You not know me … I come to England because I want to married with your sister … Don't talk about me more. Delete the video. It is not good my friend, you do not know me. I am going to come to England”. He’s not in the country. Also, he’s taking the piss.

Any more? As if you needed to ask. “Pasa was heard saying ‘pop, pop, pop’ after making hand gestures and headbutting the camera … He added: ‘I'm TikToker, I'm not gang, I am not mafia I am Mafia's Papa.’” In other words, he’s just another attention seeking bore. Bit like Nigel Farage.

Nigel Farage is still a racist and congenital liar. But you knew that already.

Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by becoming a Patron on Patreon at

https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton

New Tory Leader WON’T DO REALITY

As Labour gets itself mired in yet more factionalism and infighting, Keir Starmer need not worry, well, not for the next few weeks: to prove that he is the luckiest of generals, the opposition has ridden to his rescue, as the contest to lead what is left of the Tories has spat out the one name from those competing who was prepared to remain in the real world.

In the last ballot of Tory MPs before the final two candidates are offered to the party membership, James Cleverly, thought to be the front runner, was eliminated. This left a choice between a wacko, and, er, another wacko: the two names going forward to a ballot of members will be Kemi Badenoch, and Robert Jenrick, neither of whom appears to have a handle on reality.

Sadly for Jenrick, he has already been cursed by the endorsement of formerly totally out of his depth Brexit negotiator “Lord” David Frost, who memorably asserted “I’m backing Liz Truss for PM to lead the talented team that will deliver for Britain … It would not be possible for me to serve under Penny Mordaunt. I don’t believe a Government led by her could succeed”.

He is backing someone prepared to flat-out lie in order to get ahead: Jenrick has asserted that in 2010, when the Tories returned to power, Britain was bankrupt. It was not. He dog-whistles about migrants including “bad people”, which, for those not yet attuned to his modus operandi, means more of those Scary Muslims™. But he has one way to stave off criticism.

And that is to follow the lead of disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who has now been called out repeatedly for lying in his new book, and has responded by getting suitably righteous and denying that he has ever lied about anything. Sadly for Bozo, and indeed Jenrick, Peter Oborne has the receipts, and has documented the lies.

But that is as nothing when put alongside the inversion of reality offered by Ms Badenoch. Like her claim that “pavement dining” was a “Brexit freedom”. Well, sorry to disappoint you Kemi fans, but eating outside, whether just for a mid morning coffee and pastries, or full meals, happens here in Portugal even in mid-October, and the country is not leaving the EU any time soon.

Indeed, across the river in Lisbon, there are food and drink outlets where most, sometimes all, seating is out on the street. But such is the Kemi Badenoch reality warp that it is, when dutifully churned over by the political editor of the Daily Mail, a “Brexit freedom”. Then there is her habit of claiming that she did not say what she actually said. As with maternity pay.

As the BBC has reported, she “has suggested maternity pay has ‘gone too far’ and the government needed to interfere less in people's lives [and] said statutory maternity pay, set up to support mothers for 39 weeks after having a baby, is a ‘function of tax’ which she called ‘excessive’ [adding] We need to have more personal responsibility - there was a time when there wasn’t any maternity pay and people were having more babies”. But maybe she didn’t.

“She later said she had been ‘misrepresented’, and she was making a wider comment about cutting regulatory burdens on business”. The Beeb has helpfully set out exactly what she said, just in case. It’s almost as if some media outlets know in advance that what she says may later be denied.

The joke from a Labour source asking if Cleverly’s elimination from the Tory leadership contest can be declared as a gift is actually deadly serious. We have a main opposition party which may be about to appoint a leader who is so obsessed with dog-whistling that his policy platform is indistinguishable from Reform UK and its Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage.

And the alternative? Someone who has a habit of “off the cuff once too often”, but then becomes testy and even hostile when her “mis-speak” is pointed out. The Tories have been a wacko party ever since Bozo petulantly expelled the last remaining reality based MPs. Now they are giving their members a choice between one wacko candidate … and another wacko candidate.

The main problem is that the right wing press will consider them credible.

Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by becoming a Patron on Patreon at

https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton

Morgan McSweeney - The New Polecat

It was not so long ago that now disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was in 10 Downing Street, and his chief advisor was one Dominic Cummings. He was the Original and Genuine Polecat, a fount of megalomania, who knew more about everything and anything than anyone else, because they were all poo holes.

And what happened next was with the inevitability of night following day: in late 2020, even Bozo had had enough of his chief advisor and de facto chief of staff, and out went the Polecat, to the relief of many in and around Government who wished it had happened rather earlier. But that was then, and now we have another Polecat in Downing Street.

Moreover, we have another Polecat whose sense of self-awareness appears to have been surgically removed somewhere along the way: step forward Morgan McSweeney, the completion of whose ascension to undisputed chief Polecat has now been confirmed, perhaps unintentionally, by Pippa Crerar of the Guardian, as yet more of The Great Man’s thoughts are churned over.

McSweeney was “preparing to make ‘radical changes’ to the Downing Street operation … No 10 sources said that ‘nothing was off the table’ when it came to ensuring the machinery of government was fit for purpose, heralding a slew of changes that could reshape the Downing Street organisation”. And who is the source of this word salad, which tells us precisely Sweet Jack?

But there is more. “This could include recasting different teams inside No 10, resolving the pay dispute with special advisers and further bolstering the political side of the operation with more appointments. McSweeney would also take a more data-led approach to decision-making, sources said”. Ooh yes, a data driven approach will get the Daily Mail back in its box. Not.

Have another go. “‘The day-to-day machinery of government doesn’t work properly. Morgan has a different view on how to do things. He’s nothing if not the agent of change,’ said one senior source … ‘He will have to be radical. Nothing is off the table. We’re expected to be running a powerful G7 economy yet sometimes it’s all quite small and analogue. There has to be a better way of doing things.’” More word salad. Which conveys zero information.

Then come the first signs of megalomania. “Downing Street insiders played down the prospect of an imminent cabinet reshuffle despite reports that McSweeney could push for one … [McSweeney] is expected to attend cabinet on Tuesday”. And just exactly who voted for the SOB?

Having shat all over Sue Gray, after shitting all over the previous Labour leadership, McSweeney now has to shift to delivering, organising, and indeed taking responsibility. Schmoozing the Guardian is still in vogue with him, it seems, but he never did kill The Canary. Worse for him, the right-wing press has him in its sights. Titles like the Mail will have him for breakfast.

And that is no matter how hard he tries to shit on others to take the heat off himself, meaning, for bingo card holders, seeing which cabinet ministers are suddenly and inexplicably being briefed against, in the same way that Ms Gray and indeed Jezza were briefed against. Letting him attend Cabinet is a sign of hopeless weakness by Keir Starmer. He will come to regret it.

Behold the new Polecat. Worryingly similar to the old Polecat.

Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by becoming a Patron on Patreon at

https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton

Sue Gray - Same Old Smear Game

Those who eulogised the new régime in Downing Street after the Tories were rightly consigned to the dustbin of defeat last July might have thought that, now that the grown-ups were allegedly in charge, the old ways of in-fighting, smearing, and piss-poor client journalism would also be binned. Nothing, however, could have been further from the truth.

This has been confirmed after news came yesterday that Sue Gray, formerly chief of staff to Keir Starmer, was leaving her post. A variety of woefully weak excuses were advanced for her departure, while the reality of what was going on was blindingly clear to anyone with brain plugged in and a hole in their jacksy. Ms Gray was the victim of yet another bout of smearing and infighting.

We can deduce this from the BBC report into her departure, which tells “Labour said Ms Gray will be replaced by Morgan McSweeney, who was previously chief adviser to the PM and masterminded Labour’s election campaign”. What a non-surprise. And there is more. Rather a lot more.

“Ms Gray has been subject to intense internal briefings and criticism in a government yet to reach its first 100 days in office, and it's that level of dysfunction that has made it clear to Sir Keir that something needed to shift”. Intense internal briefings from whom? Maybe, oh I dunno, someone like Morgan McSweeney could help us here? But do go on.

“Much more damaging for her, though, was the level of anger towards her at the heart of government, indicated by high level sources being willing to leak the BBC confidential details of her salary”. How high a level are those sources at? High enough to be at a Morgan McSweeney sort of level?

We are constantly reminded that McSweeney was the great election mastermind, while no mention is made of the smear campaign run against the Corbyn leadership, which effectively meant some within the Labour Party working to throw the 2019 General Election. Worse, the 32.1% of the popular vote achieved in that campaign was increased by this year to, er, 33.7%. That’s 6.3% shy of where Corbyn was in 2017. So why the landslide?

Simples. Tories stayed home, or chose Reform UK and the packs of lies peddled by Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage. The low turnout meant that Labour actually scored fewer votes than in 2019. So excuse me for not believing the “Mastermind” and “Guru” horseshit. McSweeney seems to have undermined Ms Gray in the same way he undermined Corbyn. Which brings us to the client journalists prepared to do a little churnalism for him.

And clueless does not begin to describe the result. Like Laura Kuenssberg musing “Morgan McSweeney, who ran the election campaign, and is long time political ally of Starmer is the new Chief of Staff - politics over Whitehall?” No, just the result of another smear campaign.

The Murdoch Times has told “‘There was no grid for the first 100 days,’ a senior government source said. ‘And that was the one thing she was expected to be working on while everyone else was busy on the campaign. There was barely a single story about how the culture of government was being changed.’” Does anyone believe that the press would have stopped kicking Starmer if there had been a grid in place? Away with you.

Especially when the same paper is now sneering that Angela Rayner bought her partner a suit, and paid for it with her own money. But “there was no grid”. Yeah, right. Owen Jones asked the obvious question: “is it possible to engage with the fact that Morgan McSweeney's camp led the war against Sue Gray, and has now toppled her? Why pretend this is all the Tory press when you must know McSweeney's camp led the insurgency against her?”

Sources. They didn’t want to lose their Tory sources when The Blue Team were in Government, now they don’t want to lose the Labour ones. And why pretend that McSweeney is some kind of mastermind, just because he can shit all over his opponents? That’s not the same as delivering for the boss.

The right-wing press won’t be mollified by puerile infighting. Morgan McSweeney is about to learn a very hard lesson. Mastermind my arse.

Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by becoming a Patron on Patreon at

https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton

Chagos Islands - More Faux Outrage

If ever an example were needed to show the yawning chasm between the reporting on Tory Governments, and that on Labour ones, once more the opposition has come riding to the rescue, as the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press marks the transfer of the Chagos Islands’ status from that of British Overseas Territory to part of the Republic of Mauritius.

The recent history of the Chagos can be put directly: Mauritius, which included the islands, was seized by the British in 1810, and as recently as 1965, the Chagos were split off from Mauritius and the islanders expelled so that an airbase could be built there. Mauritius was then given its independence from its former colonial masters in 1968.

More recently, to quote the Wiki entry, “Ruling on the sovereignty dispute between Mauritius and the UK, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea has ordered the return of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius”. So they have now been returned, effectively minus Diego Garcia, the atoll where the UK/US air base has been built. So what do those Stateside say?

As the BBC has reported, “US President Joe Biden welcomed the ‘historic agreement’ … He said it secured the future of a key military base which ‘plays a vital role in national, regional, and global security.’” Then comes one more item to consider: when he was Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly was moving towards a very similar deal with Mauritius.

So what has Cleverly said when what was essentially his deal was signed off? As if you need to ask. He called his own deal “weak”. His fellow Tory leadership candidate Tom Tugendhat “argued the deal had been ‘negotiated against Britain's interest’ and it was ‘disgraceful’ that such talks had begun under the previous Conservative government”. His own party was poo!

But the whining of what Robin Day memorably and correctly called Here Today And Gone Tomorrow Politicians was nothing when put alongside the barrage of spiteful bad faith emanating from the Tory press. The Murdoch Times dispensed with reality as it whined “PM defies US to cede Chagos”.
That’s the same US whose President just backed the deal.

Equally clueless was the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, claiming “Fears for future of Gibraltar after Chagos Islands giveaway”. The deal has Sweet Jack to do with Gibraltar, or indeed any of the other British Overseas Territories. But the pièce de résistance was excreted by the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker, in today’s Daily Mail.

Here it comes: “The Chagos Islands have belonged to Britain since 1814 and include the strategically vital Diego Garcia military base. Yesterday, in a deal condemned as a shameful and dangerous capitulation, Labour agreed to hand them to Mauritius - which lies 1,300 miles away and is an ally of China … STARMER’S SURRENDER”. Why oh why oh why oh why oh why?!?!?

A headline selecting its facts very carefully: the UK and US keep control of Diego Garcia, the islands were part of Mauritius before the UK’s act of splitting them off in 1965, and Mauritius is free to make alliances with whom its democratically elected Government wishes. Cue another nay-sayer.

Yes, the Mail has exhumed the punditry career of Dan, Dan The Oratory Man! “Labour are surrendering to a Chinese puppet state” he claims. Jonathan Portes has corrected this flat-out lie, “Mauritius is pretty much level with the UK on the Economist Democracy Index, and ahead of US”, adding “I see Dan Hannan's self-proclaimed devotion to democracy and the rights of nation-states to make their own decisions doesn't extend to Africans”.

And all the while, one thought enters time and again: had this deed been done by a Tory Government, the Murdoch and Rothermere press would not have said boo. Nor would the Telegraph, whoever ends up controlling it. Also, the BBC report explains what the press doesn’t want us to know: “Brexit left many European nations reluctant to continue backing the UK’s stance in international forums”. The weakening effect of leaving the EU.

The Tories and their press pals are full of crap. But you knew that already.

Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by becoming a Patron on Patreon at

https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton

Bozo, The Mail, And Royally Lying

While the Tories spend their conference time demonstrating just how utterly wacko the party has become, to the extent that James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat come over as the most sane choices to succeed Rishi Sunak as leader, the deeply dishonest individual who set them off in that direction is demonstrating just what privilege and entitlement means.

To no surprise at all, that individual is disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who now has a memoir out titled Unleashed, serialised in the Daily Mail, still overseen by the boiling lump of spiteful rage, the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre. The serialisation shows us the privilege enjoyed by both author and newspaper.

It also shows us that, had a title like the Guardian or Mirror published what the Mail did, they would have been pilloried endlessly for it, and that the Mail would have been in the vanguard of such action. But such is the climate of fear around the Northcliffe House bunker, the Mail titles can get away with it. See also under “if it had been a Labour politician, especially Corbyn”.

To see this privilege in action, let’s look at Bozo’s response to Partygate. “Without belabouring this weary business, I think I made several catastrophic mistakes in the handling of the story”. He only thinks he screwed up. Maybe he wasn’t actually there when he was snapped leading the toast.

Do go on. “I should have been far more robust at the outset. I tried to defuse public anger by a series of rather pathetic apologies, even though I zero about the events for which I was apologising”. Bullshit. He was there, and his pals at the Mail were giving him suitably robust cover, such as “The cake remained in its Tupperware container”, which was also a lie. Have another go.

“My grovelling just made people even angrier - and made it look as though we were far more culpable than we were”. More bullshit. There was no grovelling. Bozo denied everything, then got caught lying. But the most obvious lying, and demonstration of entitlement, comes when Bozo gets on to the Royals, starting with “BORIS: MY ‘MANLY PEP TALK’ WITH HARRY IN BID TO STOP MEGXIT”. There was no pep talk. He was lying again.

Don't f***ing mention me again or I'll doxx you, c***

Thus demonstrating that he is in the same dishonesty league as Reform UK Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and Combover Crybaby Donald Trump. All three talked up by our free and fearless press; all three congenital liars, united in their ineptitude and lack of empathy towards anyone except for Themselves Personally Now. And then came the pièce de résistance.

Successive Prime Ministers have not let slip even the most inconsequential detail of their audiences with the Queen. Nor have Liz Truss, Sunak, or Keir Starmer said anything about their chats with Brian. And to disclose any detail concerning the monarch’s health - unless the monarch decrees that the detail be made known - is Streng Verboten. Unless it’s the Mail and Bozo.

After the unintentionally hilarious admission that Brenda actually read her briefing notes and he didn’t - and so learnt the contents from her telling him about them - comes the breaking of confidence which, had any left-leaning politician made it, and any not right wing paper reported it, would have had the press establishment screaming the house down.

“I had known for a year or more that she had a form of bone cancer, and her doctors were worried that at any time she could enter a sharp decline” tells the Great Bozo, as if it were public knowledge, a kind of throwaway line. He’d already lied about having a “lack of general bitterness” about having to leave Downing Street. Chris Ship, ITV News’ Royal Editor, was unimpressed.

“Given Queen Elizabeth chose not to reveal her medical condition - and her death certificate recorded the cause as ‘old age’ - it’s highly unlikely she gave Boris Johnson permission to reveal in his book, two years later, that she had, in fact, been diagnosed with bone cancer. You wonder why the former PM felt compelled to break that confidence?” Because Bozo is a total shit.

Good of him and the Dacre doggies to show the rest of the world what privilege, entitlement and the nature of being protected really means, mind.

Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by becoming a Patron on Patreon at

https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton