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Friday 15 March 2024

Tory Extremism Farce EXPOSED

Cost of living crisis, an underperforming economy, energy bills still far too high, water firms pumping raw sewage into rivers and out into the sea, councils going bust across the country, a health service in constant crisis, life expectancy falling, the well-off becoming more well off while the poor become poorer, all topped with a generous dose of rampant corruption.

The Elmer Fudd of the Tory Party is back

That is what the Tories have bequeathed the UK: small wonder their poll ratings see them on a path to losing the next General Election so badly that they may well win fewer than 100 seats. Maybe fewer than 50 seats. So what would The Blue Team like to put forward in order to provide a little momentary interest? They would like to talk about Extremism. Seriously.

And so it came to pass that Minister Still Desperately Trying To Look Relevant And Failing Miserably Michael “Oiky” Gove brought forth A New Definition Of Extremism. We only had the last one from 2011, but the new one has been touted as “Narrower and more precise”. Go on then, let’s see the wording.

Extremism is “the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance, that aims to: 1. negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others; or 2. undermine, overturn or replace the UK's system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights; or 3. intentionally create a permissive environment for others to achieve the results in (1) or (2)”. But then a problem entered.

Its name was Hester. Frank Hester. Who he? As the BBC has told, “Electoral Commission records show Mr Hester has donated more than £10m to the Conservative Party in the past year - including gifting Mr Sunak a £16,000 helicopter journey”. He also “allegedly said veteran MP Diane Abbott made him ‘want to hate all black women’ and should ‘be shot’”. There was more.

The tech boss apologised for making ‘rude’ comments about the former-Labour MP but said his remarks ‘had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin’”. Not much, they didn’t. And it got worse. “The prime minster called the comments ‘racist’ and ‘wrong’ but argues Mr Hester's apology should be accepted”. Sunak declined to give the dosh back. Then it got worse still.


Yes, “on Thursday, news website Tortoise Media reported that the Conservatives were ‘sitting on’ an extra £5m cash donation from Mr Hester that had yet to be declared - taking the total to over £15m”. Just sitting on five million notes. As you do. So there we apparently have an individual pushing hatred and intolerance, which could lead to violence. So has he been nicked?

As if. Hester’s alleged outburst also, arguably, undermines UK democracy, especially if Sunak thinks it’s OK to keep the money. Had he been poor and black, he’d already be in custody and facing a handful down the Scrubs. Worse, Gove then gave a get out of jail free card to Paul Marshall.

Who he? This from Adam Bienkov of Byline Times: “Michael Gove asked if GB News funder and Tory donor Paul Marshall, who liked and shared multiple far-right, Islamophobic, homophobic, conspiracy theory posts, is an extremist. Gove says he ‘deplores’ this ‘attack’ on Marshall, who he describes as a ‘distinguished philanthropist’”. For some value of “distinguished”.

But Gove is going after a raft of organisations advocating for Muslims. This from the Guardian: “A draft version of Gove’s ministerial statement, which has been seen by the Guardian, names several prominent Muslim groups, including MEND (Muslim Engagement and Development), CAGE, Friends of Al Aqsa, 5Pillars and the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) as ‘divisive forces within Muslim communities’”. So says the author of Celsius 7/7.

Meanwhile, Hester is quoted by the Guardian. “Addressing a number of staff members on a crowded balcony for the meeting at the TPP headquarters, overlooking the railway line in Horsforth, Leeds, Hester asked if there was ‘no room for the Indians, then?’ He then said: ‘Climb on the roof, like on the roof of the train there maybe?’”. Laugh? I thought I’d never start.

Extremism: dumping on Scary Muslims™ while accepting millions from nailed-on, er, extremists. The Tories are the pits. But you knew that already.


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Wednesday 13 March 2024

Guido Fawked - Wootton v Rayner

It is not only the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker who harbour a creepy obsession with Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner, as has been demonstrated in no style at all by the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog recently. What has also been demonstrated is The Great Guido’s stinking hypocrisy when events go against them.

Behold The Great Guido's new hero

The alleged “journalistschez Fawkes have yet to post another attack on Ms Rayner today: this may not be unconnected to one plank of their defence being kicked away yesterday by an outbreak of reality. The subject on which the attacks have been made is an unsubstantiated claim that Ms Rayner somehow avoided paying tax on the sale of a former council house.

Rather than investigate the claim thoroughly, there has been a succession of highly charged headlines implying guilt on Ms Rayner’s part, fromTories Reckon Rayner Dodged Tax”, andAngela Rayner’s Dodgy Council House Dealings Explained”, via the not at all subtle “'F***ing Liar Angela Rayner'”, the quote marks doing some seriously heavy lifting, to the equally chargedLying Angela Rayner Can’t Hide From Media Forever”.

As Sir Sean nearly said, I think we got the point. But then, yesterday, came an item from the Manchester Evening News, headlined “Labour MP Angela Rayner cleared after police investigation … A complaint was made to GMP about the Ashton-under-Lyne MP” and telling that “Angela Rayner has been cleared by police following a complaint by another Greater Manchester MP”.

Do go on. “Labour's deputy leader and Ashton-under-Lyne MP has denied claims of wrongdoing relating to where she was registered as living after her marriage in 2010. Conservatives have also accused Ms Rayner of hypocrisy after it was revealed last month that she sold her ex-council house in Stockport at a profit of £48,500”. Labour MPs not allowed to do that, then?

The Tories should have stopped and thought at the news that “According to the Mail on Sunday”. But “Bury North MP James Daly asked GMP to look into whether Ms Rayner gave the correct information in official documents and to investigate whether she broke electoral rules”. Police say NFA.

Evening all

At which point, Fawkes watchers may have experienced a measure of Déjà Vu. Like the headlineMetropolitan Police Investigation of Dan Wootton Finds No Evidence, Met Decides No Further Action”, going on to tell “In the summer of last year a number of lurid allegations were made by Byline Times about Dan Wootton … Wootton has lawyered up against Byline News”.

Is it News or Times, Fawkes folks? Sloppy sub-journalism. Must do better. But there was more: “Dan Wootton’s lawyers have sent a letter to Byline Times, its editor Peter Jukes, and the journalists Dan Evans and Tom Latchem, informing them that Dan will be going after them for a ruinously large sum in damages and costs”. And quoting ZXC v Bloomberg.

This, of course, is a studied response and nothing to do with Wootton having instructed Griffin Law, the domain of Staines’ pal Donal Blaney, he of Young Britons’ Foundation fame. The Great Guido also claims “Byline Times maliciously chose to name Dan for political reasons” and talks of an “attempt to destroy Dan’s reputation”. However, one item is missing.

And that is the minor point that Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”) has decided to dispense permanently with the deeply unpleasant Wootton’s services (so have the Mail titles), but neither has been in receipt of any communication telling them that poor Desperate Dan has been subject to an attempt to destroy The Great Man’s reputation.

Yet, as I type, there has been no word from the Fawkes rabble telling that Ms Rayner has also been told by the cops that there will be No Further Action. But it is highly likely that there will be more bad faith attacks on the Labour deputy leader, whether from Staines and his assembled creeps, or the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press, or both.

Once, the Fawkes blog was really independent. No longer. Staines always wanted to be part of the establishment club. What an unprincipled crawler.


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Monday 11 March 2024

Portugal’s Messy Election Result

So the election was held, and now the various parties have to live with the result - but maybe not for long. The centre-right PSD, being most of the Aliança Democrática along with the CDS-PP (who were wiped out in 2022) and the People’s Monarchist Party, gained all of two Deputados. The outgoing centre-left PS lost a lot more. So AD had the most seats.

Luís Montengro ((c) EPP)

But that gave them just 79 out of the 230 Deputados. Which brings us to the big winner from yesterday’s elections, Chega, and its deeply unpleasant leader André Ventura. They conned their way to 48 seats on the promise of some kind of change, of cleaning up Portuguese politics, neither of which they will accomplish. But too many in the country’s media, especially its broadcast media, have not sufficiently exposed Ventura’s vacuity.

AD, under the PSD leader Luís Montenegro, would have a majority with Chega. They won’t get that. They may make an agreement with the so-called Liberal Initiative, which is billed as “pro-business”, but in reality is the local version of The Tufton Street Gang, though the latter won just eight seats.

87 is way short of the 116 majority line. And the only other party out there on the right is Chega. Underscoring the fact that Montenegro has to own the mess was PS leader Pedro Nuno Santos conceding the contest and saying explicitly that his party would go into opposition. He saw the bed of nails and decided that his team were not going to lie on it. So why the problem?

Ventura and his party are not going to take responsibility for anything; it will all be someone else’s fault. UK politics watchers will recognise this as “doing a Farage”: Mr Thirsty initially lauded the Brexit deal presented by Boris Johnson, but more recently has declined to take any responsibility, because this was not “his” Brexit, which would have been a far superior proposition.

Worse, Montenegro has previously denounced Ventura, rightly identifying him as a xenophobe, a racist demagogue. So now, even with IL on board, and perhaps two of the four seats still to be declared, even if Chega abstained on his budget vote, 89 seats would be vulnerable to the centre-left and left taking him out. Because they would be able to muster 93, also assuming that the PS take the other two of those four yet to be declared. A word about that.

André Ventura. And his twitchy right arm

Portugal’s post-revolutionary constitution ensures that no citizen is disenfranchised, even if they reside outside the country. So two seats in the Assembly are for citizens who live elsewhere in Europe, and two for citizens who live elsewhere in the world. These will not declare for at least a week.

Chega could help Montenegro by backing his budget, but here a problem enters: further down the road, this taking of responsibility could be held against them. Ventura and his pals will happily vote something down - that’s easy - but making a positive choice to support something - that’s hard.

The BBC notes thatThe Chega leader said his party was ready to help build the next government. But even though he has watered down some of his policies … there seems little chance of him having any role at this stage” but cautions “Former centre-right leader Luís Marques Mendes said there had never been an election night like this before: ‘I think we'll have fresh elections early next year’”. By which time the voters may have rumbled Ventura.

All that the left and centre-left have to do is to choose their moment. Unless Ventura and his gang are prepared to make a positive choice and back Montenegro. But if they back AD, and AD turn out to have got something wrong, that would rebound against them. Of course, the Chega claim that everyone else in Portuguese politics is corrupt could also work against them.

That would occur if anyone in Chega, or linked to them, were to be caught with their hands in the till. Ventura is adept at playing the victim - think Trump playbook - but his support is yet fragile. At least there was one big positive from yesterday’s contest, and that is turnout, which, at 66%, was far higher than two years ago, and a high turnout is always good for a democracy.

Meanwhile, eyes are on the President to nominate a PM. No pressure, now.


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Saturday 9 March 2024

Brillo Faces Humiliation

With many out on the right increasingly worried about the possibility of the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, and the equally increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine, being sold off to a vehicle bankrolled out of the UAE, and headed by a former CNN main man, their knight in less than shining armour has appeared to oppose the move.


Step forward former Murdoch editor Andrew Neil, Brexiteer without equal, well, apart from his residing in an EU member state, that is. Brillo clearly approved of the news from Spectator editor Fraser Nelson, who told his followers “It’s looking more likely that the Emirati bid for the Spectator and Telegraph will be blocked by parliament”. Until the next election, maybe.

Still, Neil was bullish as he respondedIf so it will be a job well done. And one in the eye for IMI, their know-nothing-about-Britain US frontman, Jeff Zucker, and their hired hand, George ‘Fees’ Osborne”. Sadly for him, Zucker has been speaking to former BBC man Jon Sopel, now of The News Agents.

Andrew Neil, sometimes media executive, chairman of the Spectator, who I know you’ve met, said ‘the idea that these two vital vehicles of mainstream centre-right thought should be owned by Arab money, and controlled out of New York by a left-wing Democrat, beggars belief’. He said that the idea is absurd” told Sopel as Zucker listened patiently. So what say Mr Z?

This may come as a shock, but Andrew Neil is quite the hypocrite on this …the reality is that Andrew Neil was interested in working with us, until we didn’t have any interest in having him work with us. I proposed to him … that he be the chair of an editorial trust board for the Spectator. He said that was too small for him, because he already, essentially, had that role”. Do go on.

But he did say to me that he’d be interested in being the chair of a combined editorial trust board for the Telegraph and the Spectator, and suggested that, in that role, he could also act as a shadow editor of the Telegraph, because he felt the newspaper needed one. He also wanted to know how much such a role would pay. We said no thanks. And ever since that day, he’s been one of our most vocal critics, and I think that says all you need to know about [him]”.

Jeff Zucker ((c) David Shankbone)

OUCH! And he wasn’t finished. “Since I am sure he’s going to deny this … let me be very clear about something. He did not make that request just of me … and I can also tell you, that when I spoke to folks at both the Telegraph and the Spectator about his potential involvement, they were all quite pleased to learn that he would not be around”. DOUBLE OUCH!! Come on Brillo!

Mr Zucker’s memory is playing tricks on him … I have no interest in a role solely designed to give Mr Zucker editorial credibility, which he lacks”. But Jeff Zucker, with his background, does not need Andrew Neil to give him credibility. The rest of Neil’s rebuttal airily pours scorn on Zucker. But one thing is lacking. And that is any threat of legal action against Zucker.

Moreover, whatever desperate measure the Tories dream up in order to block the Redbird IMI takeover of the Tel and Speccy is highly unlikely to survive a change in Government in the UK, which may occur sooner rather than later. So what’s with the idea of blocking that takeover? Simples. It guarantees that both titles will back the Tories into that election. And when the Tories lose, folks like Neil and Nelson will discover just how disposable they are.

After all, there were no howls of protest when the Evening Standard and Independent were taken over by the Russians - Russians very close to that country’s security agencies. Or when “Arab money”, to use Brillo’s happy phrase, bought a stake in the latter publication. Nor was there such organised opposition when another foreign takeover of the Tel happened.

That being Conrad Black buying the Tel and Speccy, among other titles. Nor was there the same scale of protest when Peter Oborne resigned from the Tel after the paper failed to cover the HSBC Swiss tax-dodging scandal, apparently in fear of offending advertisers (though Brillo criticised the Tel).

The time of Andrew Neil as a player, a major influence in the UK’s right-wing press, was for a time, but not for all time. Just rejoice at that news.



Thursday 7 March 2024

Farage Does Another Racism

Fresh from his attempt to smear former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has come another racism from former Brexit Party Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage. Nige has seen that Jeremy Hunt (the former Culture Secretary) has allocated public funds for a memorial honouring the sacrifice of Muslims who fought for Britain in two world wars, and elsewhere.


In another example of He Wouldn’t Have Said That About Jews - not even Farage would have gone there - The Great Man told his audience of adoring GammonatiAt 12.30, up got the Chancellor of the Exchequer. His opening sentence I simply could not believe”. The offending passage was played back. “Well, here is my response. I went to the local cemetery” said Nige.

Over 100 years ago, we had men of more brain and foresight than our Chancellor. They decided at the end of the First World War, and continued it through World War 2 as well, that everybody, regardless of race, rank or religion, would be buried beneath the same headstone. The principle was equality in death, recognising the contribution of all”. There was more.

Indeed, if you go to a big Commonwealth war graves cemetery in France, or elsewhere, what you’ll see is a stone of remembrance that says ‘those of all faiths and none’. We thought about this more than 100 years ago. We do not need Jeremy Hunt putting forward the idea of a memorial to a specific religion. It is just plain wrong”. Cue fervent Gammonati applause.

Yeah, that’s telling all those Scary Muslims™! Who do they think they are, eh? But, as Captain Blackadder might have observed, there was only one thing wrong with Farage’s argument - it was bollocks. For starters, if you go to a big Commonwealth cemetery, as Farage suggests, you will soon see that his claim about “the same headstone” is yet another from his roster of lies.

The "same headstone" in practice

Christians generally have a headstone in the shape of a cross. Jewish soldiers have the Star of David on theirs. And Muslims? At the very minimum, the crescent moon and star will be present, and most likely with some Arabic script. So Farage couldn’t find any examples in Whitehaven, where he was presenting his burst of straight-talking bluster and intolerance?

Maybe the area didn’t have many non-Christian soldiers billeted there, or indeed, living there before and during two World Wars. But I have news for Mr Thirsty: the British Indian Army, which by 1945 had grown in number to around two and a half million, is agreed to have contained around a million Muslims. Of which tens of thousands gave their lives for the Empire.

Indeed, the National Muslim War Memorial Trust has pointed outBy World War II, the British Indian Army had grown significantly to 2.5 million. Of this approximately 1 million were Muslims. Muslims mainly from India and African countries fought on three continents and played a decisive role in Britain's first major land victory against Nazi Germany in North Africa”.

Winston Churchill told, in a letter to Franklin Roosevelt at the height of the Second World War, “We must not on any account break with the Moslems, who represent a hundred million people, and the main army elements on which we must rely for the immediate fighting”. They fought to liberate us from totalitarianism. Farage missed that. Why might that be?

You might wish to ask that question. I couldn’t possibly comment.


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Tuesday 5 March 2024

Corbyn Sues Farage

And so it came to pass that former Brexit Party Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage overstepped the defamation line in no style at all, live during a broadcast on Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”), perhaps thinking that, as his target was former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, it was a free hit and there would not be any blowback.


After all, his taking out the smearing iron was on the subject of anti-Semitism, and Jezza had had every last drop of that dumped on him by his detractors, whatever the fact of the matter might have been. So what did Mr Thirsty say? Here it comes, and don’t forget: what Farage said was highly defamatory.

I said the Jewish community in North America had been massively successful in law, in business, and yes, they did campaign for what they wanted, they did it within the law, they did it quite successfully, but I was never a subscriber to the madcap conspiracy theory [we’ll see about that later] that the Jews run the world. But I’ll tell you who was - yes, Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour leader that you supported. Yes, Jeremy Corbyn!

It was not long before examples of Jezza not subscribing to what, using Farage’s happy phrase, was a “madcap conspiracy theory”, were appearing all over Twitter, X, or whatever Muskrat’s calling it this week. Worse for Mr Thirsty, there are plenty of examples of him crossing the anti-Semitism line out there. Including what he actually said about North America.

Before LBC kicked him out, Farage told listenersthere are other very powerful foreign lobbies in the United States of America, and the Jewish lobby with its links to the Israeli Government is one of those strong voices”. The US Jewish lobby, according to Farage, was a “foreign lobby”.

Could it get worse? Don’t ask. The Board of Deputies were not happy: “In a tweeted video message this month, Farage said the UK faced ‘cultural Marxism’ [origins in Nazi ideology] … said companies who pulled TV adverts from rightwing TV shows were being pressured by ‘Soros-funded organisations’ [trope of the ‘Disloyal Jew’]”. And his Newsweek interview?


Farage talked about ‘unelected globalists shaping the public’s lives based on secret recommendations from the big banks’ [‘Globalists’ being code for ‘Jews’ or ‘Jewish bankers’] … Goldman Sachs was the only bank he mentioned by name, echoing another common theme from far-right antisemitism”. We need look no further than Ms Thirsty’s Twitter feed to see examples - rather a lot of examples - of these characterisations.

Orbán's Hungary is standing up to George Soros and closing him down, I wish we all did the same … Another anti-Brexit plot backed by George Soros. This man will stop at nothing … The Soros-funded attempt for a second referendum has failed … London is ranked the best financial centre while Frankfurt is 11th. We're all sick of the constant threats from Goldman and the globalists”. Goldman and the globalists? They got an album out, have they?

There was more. “We are heading towards a world where the democratic nation state has made a comeback against the globalists … We are beating the globalists! … Obama and Merkel are holding a losing party for the globalists! … The globalists are sticking together”. And he wasn’t finished.

Goldman Sachs and big business lost the referendum … Congratulations to former EU Commission President [José Manuel Barroso], now over at Goldman Sachs. Global corporatism! … If Goldman Sachs are leaving London for the US, why aren't they going to their beloved European Union? … Goldman Sachs Chairman thinks those who want border controls are 'xenophobic'. Badly out of touch”. You get the picture. So will Jezza’s lawyers.

Farage will find many instances of Corbyn condemning anti-Semitism, denouncing Holocaust denial, and showing solidarity with Jewish groups. He will have rather more difficulty standing up his smear of the former Labour leader. He will lose this one - should he decide to defend it.

Nigel Farage will have to pay up and say sorry. Just rejoice at that news.


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Sunday 3 March 2024

Tory Dog Whistling - Enough Is Enough

All too often, when you need to show how debased politics has become, the opposition rides to your rescue. Today’s Mail on Sunday has demonstrated this superbly, carrying a screed of no observable fact from Robert Jenrick, a former minister whose resignation was a great relief to all those who wished it had happened rather earlier. And the subject is Scary Muslims™.

Robert Jenrick. Claims to be a former minister

This brings not so much a dog whistle as a foghorn, devoid of facts but heavy on nudge-nudgery and forthright bigotry. So let’s start at the very beginning, as it’s a very good place to start. “It’s crystal clear to the British public we have a serious issue with Islamist extremism [no citation] … Just this week we saw the strength of the alliance between the hard-Left and Islamists on full display, with George Galloway’s brand of sectarian politics proving a decisive vote-winner in Rochdale”. Democracy is bad when you don’t like the result.

But do go on. “As Immigration Minister I grappled with the link between uncontrolled mass migration and extremism”. Which is not an easy task, as there is no “uncontrolled mass migration”, and no link between this fictitious concept and extremism. And then we’re on to the Small Boats™.

A not-insignificant number crossing in small boats turn out to be national security threats that require surveillance from our security services [no citation]. While most arrivals don’t pose a direct threat, they are from countries that are statistically more likely to possess values and beliefs … at stark odds to our own”. Guilt by association. And no citation. Again.

Despite the rise in far-Right activity, the threat still overwhelmingly comes from Islamists”. And once more it’s a No Citation. He’s worried about MPs’ safety. Er, who killed Jo Cox? And who plotted to kill Rosie Cooper? It was the home grown far right. And who hosted a hate preacher in the Commons?

That would have been Bob Blackman. As in, one of Jenrick’s fellow Tory MPs, who hosted the Islamophobic and indeed anti-Christian Tapan Ghosh, who explicitly endorsed Geert Wilders, and held a meeting with Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson. Ghosh talks about the Muslim “reproduction rate”. He endorses fringe wackos such as Breitbart.


Jenrick does not allow this to trouble him as he continues “Islamists make up 75 per cent of the security services’ caseload, but a culture of political correctness has meant roughly a quarter of referrals are for those espousing Islamist views”. WOKE WOKE WOKE WOKE WOKE. Let’s misuse the language! And, guess what? You got it - No Citation.

And he’s not finished, sadly: “Our intelligence services are stretched and so rightly apply a high threshold before engaging. That means plenty of less dangerous - but still hateful - extremists don’t qualify”. What kind of offences is he talking about? Walking on the cracks in the pavement? Looking at officers in a funny way? Wearing a loud shirt in a built-up area?

Then he goes there. “We must immediately end the two-tiered policing that has consistently let extremists off the hook”. There is no such thing as “two-tiered policing. And there’s more. “Would the police have intervened to prevent ‘from the river to the sea’ being emblazoned on the Palace of Westminster if it was a racist far-right slogan? I strongly suspect so”.

Why doesn’t he mention that the current Israeli ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, used the phrase? Or is that more of Jenrick’s “two-tiered standards”? So what’s his solution? “To forge a more cohesive and united society we must end the disastrous experiment with mass migration. That task is virtually impossible when more than a million people arrive in the country every year”. Two things here. One, there is no “experiment”.

And Two, the increase in non-EU migration is a direct consequence of leaving the EU. Which Jenrick’s party botched. Moreover, if the immigration numbers were to be significantly reduced, the economy would suffer. Because there would be fewer people in productive employment and paying taxes.

The extremism of which he speaks would be reduced if he, plus 30p Lee, Liz Truss and Suella Braverman, were to stop encouraging it. That is all.


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Friday 1 March 2024

Guido Fawked - Spanker Spanked

The perpetually thirsty Paul Staines memorably told Esquire magazine that “the lying in politics is on an industrial scale”, momentarily missing the fact that he and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog contributed rather a lot of it themselves. And nowhere was this more obvious than in their dealings in political matters in and around the constituency of Rochdale.

Behold the arbiter of good journalistic practice

One highlight stands out: the flat-out lying about then Greater Manchester Mayoral hopeful Andy Burnham, whose draft manifesto for the Labour nomination had been leaked to The Great Guido. Seeing a redaction in the text, then teaboy Alex “Billy Liar” Wickham invented a reason for the redaction. Reality soon showed that he had chosen … poorly.

It also showed the bad faith nature of the Fawkes rabble: others did the making up and other invention, never themselves. Staines’ roster of personnel may have changed over the years, but that nasty undercurrent still holds sway. So it was when sitting MP Tony Lloyd died and a by-election was called - bringing one political career momentarily back from the dead.

Who that? Step forward disgraced former Labour and independent MP Simon “Spanker” Danczuk, whose one accurate observation on his own career was “There’s no fool like an old fool” after the Murdoch Sun splashed a front page on another of his momentary liaisons with a much younger woman. Spanker was to stand for his old seat. For the Reform UK Party.

The latest incarnation of the Brexit Party, domain of Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, is now headed by out-of-touch property magnate Richard Tice (he’s not very nice). Polling in national opinion polls at around 10%, there were high hopes that Danczuk could reclaim his old seat. The party duly got a favourable press release recycling from the Fawkes mob.

With Labour imploding in Rochdale William Hill now says they are no longer the favourites … Reform UK and their candidate Simon Danczuk’s campaign is now concentrating on stopping Galloway. Their simple message to those with Labourite views is that Labour is too distracted with Middle-Eastern politics to be focussed on the important issues. Reform spokesman Gawain Towler tells Guido: ‘If you care about Rochdale not Gaza the only person left in this fight is Simon’” told The Great Guido. But this was total crap.

Exhumed political career isn't. Good thing too

As the BBC reported after the by-election result was declared, “George Galloway is back in Parliament with a resounding win in the Rochdale by-election after a campaign in which the Gaza war was a running theme”.

Galloway, wearing a hat, but not because he’s over-sensitive about his continuing encounter with male pattern baldness, you understand, memorably told “Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak are two cheeks of the same backside and they both got well and truly spanked tonight here in Rochdale”. The actual Spanker came 6th. His vote share was 1.9% down on the Brexit Party’s 2019 showing. And well short of that 10% Reform UK national poll rating.

So The Great Guido faithfully reported the excuses. “Reform UK came 6th last night, after Tice told party representatives to leave the election count for their own safety as a mob gathers outside … Tice pointed fingers at a ‘sudden increase also in the size of the postal vote’”. Yeah, right.

If Reform UK were so popular, why the warning to leave the count? And why blame the postal vote, which carried the 2016 referendum over the line for Leave? But no acknowledgement that the Fawkes rabble once again got it wrong, despite their sneering dismissal of actual journalism.

As in their telling, apropos Dan Wootton and his instructing lawyers to go after a variety of people, “The next question is whether or not Byline Times will [settle]. The six or seven figure bill might encourage them to. If they choose to double down, it’ll spell the end of the outlet. And an end to its particularly paranoid form of conspiracy theorising masquerading as gutter journalism”. After their Rochdale conspiracy theory about how popular Reform UK was.

What say Frankie Leach? After being on the wrong end ofconspiracy theorising masquerading as gutter journalism”? Away with you, Guido.


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Monday 26 February 2024

30p Lee Does Another Racism

And so it came to pass that all the attempts by the Tories to drive the issue of bigotry round the houses until the next issue provided a little momentary interest were for nothing. Lee Anderson, already minus the party whip, has declined to say sorry for doing a racism with his attack on London Mayor Sadiq Khan, but instead has done another racism. And a conspiracy theory.


As the BBC has reported, Anderson told Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”) that “I don't actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they've got control of [Sadiq] Khan and they've got control of London… He's actually given our capital city away to his mates”. The Scary Muslims™ done it!

After he lost the whip, 30p Lee mused “Following a call with the chief whip, I understand the difficult position that I have put both he and the prime minister in with regard to my comments. I fully accept that they had no option but to suspend the whip in these circumstances. However, I will continue to support the government's efforts to call out extremism in all its forms - be that anti-Semitism or Islamophobia”. And how would he express this support?

Sadly for the Tories, he would express it by doing another racism, along with a screaming dog-whistle of a racist conspiracy theory. “If you are wrong, apologising is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength … But, when you think you are right, you should never apologise because to do so would be a sign of weakness”. So what made him right, and Mayor Khan wrong?

His remarks wereborn out of sheer frustration at what is happening to our beautiful capital city … Politics is divisive and I am just incredibly frustrated about the abject failures of the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan … Hundreds of people had been arrested for racist abuse on these marches [showing solidarity with Palestinians] and we barely hear a peep from the mayor”.

Do go on. “If these marches were about something less fashionable, Sadiq Khan would have been the first to call for them to be cancelled. It’s double standards for political benefit”. You may not have heard the dog whistle, but the racists did. That’s the “two-tier policing” racist conspiracy theory.


Added to that, Anderson is lying about “hundreds of people … arrested for racist abuse”. The BBC has revealed that “Religious/racial abuse has been listed as the reason for arrest in a total of 30 cases … 11 in October … 11 in November … Eight in December”. Figures for January are not yet available. Then there is the suggestion that Khan has operational control of the Met.

Let’s take this nice and slowly, for 30p Lee and all the others who think that the Mayor of London could call off the Palestine solidarity marches. Sadiq Khan does not, repeat does not, REPEAT DOES NOT have operational control over the Metropolitan Police. And the only person who can direct the Met to outlaw those marches is the Home Secretary, James Cleverly.

Who is not the Mayor of London, not in the Labour Party, and not intervening to have any of those marches called off. Sadly, nailing Islamophobia is less straightforward as the cross-party group which devised a definition of that racism had its findings kicked into the long grass by the Tories - possibly because it would expose the bigotry of our free and fearless press.

It would certainly cause editors to think twice before giving a platform to the likes of the deeply unpleasant Kelvin McFilth, who is still courted by the papers, and indeed GB News. And Trevor Kavanagh asking about what we are going to do about “The Muslim Question”, only to pretend he didn’t know that wording was loaded. Nor did his editors. Yeah, right.

It might also stop Tories indulging in Muslim bashing, like Paul Scully, who todaytalks about ‘changing neighbourhoods’ and Muslim ‘no go areas’ in Tower Hamlets and Birmingham”. Miqdaad Versi noted “Not realising ‘no go zones’ are a typical false & Islamophobic trope from the white supremacist & far right fringes, shows the depth of the problem”. Remember Andy Ngo.

Lee Anderson is a racist bigot. As are too many Tories and pundits.


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Sunday 25 February 2024

Liz Truss - Remove The Whip. NOW

No action was taken by the Tories following the outburst of bigotry in the Commons by Robert Jenrick, or the support of that outburst by Penny Mordaunt. And no action was taken following the throwing of petrol on the fire by Suella Braverman. But Lee Anderson had the whip removed after he did a racism with his attack on London Mayor Sadiq Khan.


30p Lee will, however, continue to be accommodated by Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”), which should surprise no-one, given that the broadcaster’s main money injecting man is Paul Marshall, who has just been exposed as having an Alt Twitter account which re-Tweets and likes a range of Muslim bashing wacko conspiracy theory bigotry.

Worse for the Tories in two ways is, One, that it has been strongly inferred that Anderson would not have had the whip removed had he apologised, and, Two, that the worst of the lot remains unpunished. Mary Elisabeth Truss, formerly, and fortunately briefly, comedy Prime Minister, has been to the USA, where she has been keeping some seriously dodgy company.

As before, she has claimed that her Premiership was undermined by something called The Media. But that media includes the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press, which praised her unconditionally. The Daily Mail, in particular, told its readers “COMETH THE HOUR, COMETH THE WOMAN” and “AT LAST! A TRUE TORY BUDGET”. So true a Tory budget that it came close to crashing the economy. And it got worse. A lot worse.

She proceeded to share a platform with the deeply unpleasant Steve Bannon, whom she askedWould you work with Nigel Farage to restructure the Tory party?” That’s a whip suspension in one. Bannon proceeded to call Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, a “hero”.

How would Ms Truss respond? How would a statesmanlike and credible former Prime Minister have responded? How would any person with a hole in their arse and brain plugged in have responded? How would Nietzsche have responded? Sadly, Ms Truss does not operate on that intellectual plateau, and so she just nodded along with Bannon. And it got worse still.


Liz Truss is attending this year’s CPAC. She has delivered a speech to the gathering. The same gathering which Jack Posobiec has addressed, raising his fist as he proclaimedWelcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it”. Still want to give her the benefit of the doubt?

Nick Lowles of Hope Not Hate asked the obvious question. “Where is the media and political outrage at Liz Truss, a (short-lived) former British Prime Minister, addressing a conference where speaker after speaker glorify the storming of the Capitol on Jan 6 and promise worse is to come?

His problem, sadly, is that rather too many in the media and politics are prepared to downplay or even dismiss the bigotry. Like the BBC (hello Robbie Gibb) dismissing 30p Lee’s racism with the headlineMP suspended over criticism of London mayor”. Oliver Dowden, still deputy PM, declaredI don't believe Lee Anderson said those words in any way intending to be Islamophobic”. Spectator editor Fraser Nelson is also in downplaying mode.

Genuinely racist and anti-Muslim slurs are very rare in British public debate” he pontificated, for some reason not noticing the amount of genuinely racist and anti-Muslim slurs that appear in the magazine, and on the website, of which he is supposed to be the editor. Remember “My own view is that there is not nearly enough Islamophobia within the Tory party”?

And Ms Truss is probably safe when Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has to tell Laura Kuenssberg “You basically laid bare the Tory Party's problem.. you see ambivalence when it comes to Islamophobia. If the ‘they have got control’ was related to Jewish people that would straightaway be called out as anti-semitism. But there's a double standard here”.

Liz Truss should have the Tory whip removed. But her party, and its media allies, are already circling the wagons. The Tories’ racist sickness exposed.


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Friday 23 February 2024

Muslim Hatred And The Media

Nothing, but nothing, comes close to the sustained hostility, nay, bigotry displayed not only by our free and fearless press, but also broadcast media and rather too many of what Robin Day memorably and rightly called “here today and gone tomorrow politicians”, towards Muslims. Demonisation does not even begin to describe it. It had gone too far a long time ago.


Now, it has got out of hand to such an extent that it has passed the wayside station known as Hate Speech and is gathering speed towards Underclass. Yes, followers of The Prophet are the new Untermenschen, the latest attempt to dump on them for no good reason at all being the debate earlier this week on calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, and for the slaughter there to stop.

It really kicked off when Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle told those gathered in the chamber that MPs face “frightening” threats. Allied to former Brexit Party Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage telling “By the 2029 General Election we will have a radical Islamic party represented in Westminster”, the translation of “threats” into “Scary Muslims™” was on.

Flap-mouthed bigot Julia Hartley Dooda saw protests at the Commons and instantly converted this into more of those Scary Muslims™: “‘We have slept [sic] walked into this’ … Julia Hartley Brewer reacts to ‘outrageous scenes’ taking place across the country influenced by ‘Islamist Ideology’ … ‘a highly political, highly violent ideology called “Islamism” is sweeping on [sic] nation’”.

The loathsome Toby Young joined in, setting the bar yet lower: “If Keir Starmer browbeats the Speaker into breaching Parliamentary rules because he fears Muslim Extremists will attack his MPs, what would he do in office to appease the same mob? Ban cartoons of Mohammed? Make disrespecting the Qur’an a hate crime? Repeal the Terrorism Act?

So now it’s terrorism! And it’s Hamas!! You think I jest? Along came Tom Harris to make the connections: “The intimidation of MPs is not coming from both sides in the Israel-Hamas conflict. Only one side's supporters believe it's okay to threaten and intimidate democratically elected representatives … Hamas supporters reckon they can get their way by violence and intimidation. Shocking revelation, eh?” What violence? What intimidation?


One hates to come over all Neil Kinnock, but here we have a former Labour MP - A Former Labour MP - scuttling round media outlets seeding hatred. Peaceful protest is violent! It’s Hamas! One Tweeter posted a photo of this supposed Muslim horde. Except they weren’t. They were white and elderly.

And then came the opportunist Tory politicians, for whom no barrel scraping went low enough. Leading off was the Creep’s Creep, Robert Jenrick, claimingWe have allowed our streets to be dominated by islamist extremists.... & now we're allowing islamist extremists to intimidate British members of Parliament”. He was, sad to tell, not alone in this view.

Previously sort of sensible Penny Mordaunt chipped in “I could not agree more with my right honourable friend”. Would anyone care to top that? Here’s Suella! “Suella Braverman says Islamists are in charge of Britain nowannounced the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph.

It should not need saying that wanting an end to the gratuitous slaughter of little children and their mums, to be annoyed with your elected representatives for trivialising the matter, and exercising the right to protest does not make you extreme. It does not make you an Islamist. It does not make you Hamas. It does not make you violent. It makes you human.

Jew hatred was a feature of 1930s Britain: the hostility that those such as Nicholas Winton faced, just for organising the Kindertransport, was real. It took the Holocaust to stop that. The mass killing of millions of Jews stopped that hatred from passing the dinner party test. How much more slaughter of innocent people will have to take place before Muslim hatred goes the same way? You know, the latest hatred to pass the dinner party test?

It’s high time the press and politicians gave their heads a shake. And stopped pouring out the hatred. Then showed a better example. Just a thought.


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Thursday 22 February 2024

Labour’s Gaza Shame - Part 1

It was a day designated as an SNP opposition day. So it should have surprised no-one that the Scot Nats put forward a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, no ifs, no buts, no get-out clause, no conditional statement. Then Labour put forward its own amendment, to demand an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”. And then came the Speaker.

Mr Speaker is very sorry ...

Lindsay Hoyle waves his arms and otherwise flaps a lot. He generates significant amounts of hot air. Yesterday, he went against recent tradition by allowing the Labour amendment to go first, which, as the BBC report put it, prompted “fury from both the SNP and the Conservatives”.

So why was the Labour amendment an equivocation? Beeb again: “Labour's amendment, which called for an ‘immediate humanitarian ceasefire’ noted that Israel ‘cannot be expected to cease fighting if Hamas continues with violence’ and called for a diplomatic process to deliver ‘a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable Palestinian state’ … While the initial motion tabled by the SNP went further, calling for an ‘immediate ceasefire’ and an end to the ‘collective punishment of the Palestinian people’”. Meaning what?

Meaning this gave the Israeli Government the old get-out ploy. Also, “Sir Lindsay's decision meant Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer avoided another potential rebellion over the party's position on Gaza as Labour MPs were able to show their support for a ceasefire without voting for an SNP motion”.

Was this merely Keir Starmer getting lucky? Apparently not: as Nick Watt of Newsnight told, “Senior Labour figures tell me [Commons Speaker] was left in no doubt that Labour would bring him down after the general election unless he called Labour’s Gaza amendment”. An amendment which got round Starmer ordering his MPs to abstain on the SNP motion.

That could have caused cracks to appear in the ostensibly solid and united Labour edifice, the possibility of open revolt among some shadow ministers. It may not have been caving in to Labour threats, but you could see it from there. In any case, what was stopping The Red Team from just giving its MPs a free vote? What was wrong with just saying “ceasefire now”?

... to have let an opportunist politician off the hook

Ah well. While the BBC Politics feed told‘I regret how it's ended up... it was never my intention for it to end up like this’ … Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle says he ‘tried to do what he thought was the right thing for all sides of this House’ as he apologises for his decision”, there was uproar outside the chamber as protesters voiced their displeasure at MPs’ behaviour.

And then came the inevitable fallout. Nick Watt again: “Looking like [SNP] MPs minded to sign the Will Wragg EDM expressing no confidence in [Commons Speaker]. One Tory: When the Tories and SNP agree then something big is afoot”. Owen Jones had his own take on the matter.

Labour blackmailed the Speaker into violating Parliamentary protocol so they could shield Israel from the charge of collective punishment … Any political journalist worth their money should be clear that’s what happened … The Speaker allowed himself to be bullied and should resign”. The problem is that too many journalists were whining “look over there” at the protesters.

Who could be smeared as “extremists”, or worse, merely for wanting an end to the slaughter, and then getting justifiably angry when their elected representatives used the exercise to put the frighteners on Lindsay Hoyle, and otherwise show the world that their priorities did not include stopping thousands of women and children from being blown apart in Gaza.

Journalist Sol Hughes surveyed the wreckage and concludedI was once in some Courtroom training. A Barrister explained that if you ask a witness a question, then look away when they answer, they'll raise their voice to get your attention , so you can try make them seem angry + unreasonable. It's how Labour are treating Gaza protests”. And all for what?

The Speaker may have been fatally undermined. Meanwhile, the killing goes on. And Starmer’s Labour treats it as a game. Bad, bad mistake.


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Tuesday 20 February 2024

Julian Assange And Justice

And so came the last opportunity for Julian Assange to avoid being extradited from the UK to the United States: the current court hearing is to challenge a decision by Priti Patel, then Home Secretary, and also the 2021 High Court ruling that he could be extradited. He has been incarcerated in Belmarsh Prison since being dragged from the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2019.


So what has Assange allegedly done to warrant his being banged up in Belmarsh? The US authorities claim “Conspiracy to commit computer intrusion” and violating the 1917 Espionage Act. Why so? That is all down to the information released by WikiLeaks. Information which showed the USA, its security agencies, and its armed forces in a very poor light indeed.

In other words, he blew the whistle on some seriously deadly behaviour. He also did not endear himself to the US Democrats by publishing information suggesting the party was biased against Bernie Sanders, in the run-up to the party’s 2016 Convention. He was also critical of combover crybaby Donald Trump. But Trump was later to speak highly of WikiLeaks.

As the BBC has reported, “On the campaign trail, Trump heaped praise on Wikileaks, saying at one rally that ‘Wikileaks is like a treasure trove,’ and ‘Boy, I love reading Wikileaks,’ at another”. So would he cut Assange some slack? Er, no: “But in 2019, when asked about the prosecution of Assange, Trump said: ‘I know nothing really about him. That’s not my deal in life.’

If Assange thought Trump might look favourably upon him, he was sorely mistaken. For Trump, everything is transactional: if Assange, or anyone else, is no longer any use to him, does not confer any benefit upon him, then they are simply discarded. He’ll get nothing out of Trump. And, as Wikileaks was behind the leaking of Hillary Clinton’s private emails, he’ll get nothing out of Joe Biden either. The current President has been silent on the matter.

Some will point to Assange’s behaviour being, shall we say, challenging. He can be a right royal pain in the neck. But that is not a criminal offence: were it so, most of the Parliamentary Conservative party, along with their lobby group pals, and most of their press hangers-on, would now have been banged up.

Countries that might have given Assange asylum are most likely frightened of the USA turning on them - whoever is in the White House. And now there is the issue of his health suffering as a result of his imprisonment. Ominously, the BBC report now tells “Julian Assange's lawyer says the Wikileaks founder is not in court today as he is unwell”. How unwell is then spelled out.

Assange's wife Stella [told the BBC] that he would not survive being extradited from the UK to the US as he is physically and mentally extremely weak … [his brother] said his health was in 'a very delicate position' and he was ‘going through immense amounts of suffering’ at Belmarsh Prison, where he has been since 2019”. Years of confinement take their toll.

So why continue with the extradition? After all, the WikiLeaks trove “are said to have originated from former US soldier Chelsea Manning. Back in 2013, Manning was court martialled and sentenced to 35 years in prison for charges relating to this leak. But this sentence was later commuted by then US President Barack Obama after she'd already served four years in prison”.


More suspiciously, as Wikipedia notes, “Under the Obama Administration, the Department of Justice did not indict Assange because it could not find evidence that his actions differed from those of a journalist”. But then, “During the Trump Administration, CIA director Mike Pompeo and Attorney General Jeff Sessions stepped up pursuit of Assange”.

So Trump spoke with forked tongue. Again. Looking at the case now, there seems no point in continuing the pursuit of Assange, especially given Chelsea Manning has been free for some years. Being a difficult SOB is no excuse for imprisoning someone in a maximum security jail. So why not just free him and have done with it? Ah well. They have to make an example of someone.

That’s how the same They keeps everyone else in line. Sad but true.


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Sunday 18 February 2024

Trump - Why He’s Toast

There may or may not be a General Election in the UK this year. But there is no such uncertainty in the USA: the Presidency, all of the House of Representatives, and a third of the Senate are up for grabs come November. For the increasingly wacko Republican Party, that means getting behind combover crybaby Donald Trump. But here a problem enters.

Donald, where's yer hairspray?

The Donald is mired in a series of court cases. Including the just-delivered judgment of Judge Arthur Engoron in a civil fraud case in New York. As the BBC correctly reports, “Donald Trump's latest legal loss hits him where it hurts most because it takes aim at his very identity. For decades, he has marketed himself as a genius business mogul who made it big in one of the world's most cut-throat cities”. Not any more. And why should that be?

Judge Arthur Engoron's ruling in a civil fraud case - related to the inflation of property values and lying on financial statements to obtain better loan terms - undermines Mr Trump's entire narrative. It instead paints him as a fraud and inflicts a massive blow to his business empire and wealth”. A fraud.

Trump “has personally been banned from holding any directorships for three years and his company cannot secure loans with financial institutions registered with [New York] city during that time either … He has been hit with an enormous financial penalty of $355m (£282m; €329m) - which jumps to more than $450m once interest is included - that far exceeds how much cash he has to hand”. He will appeal. But that will only make matters worse.

The reality is that Trump is not the multi-billionaire he would like the world to believe. Paying that penalty will mean getting a loan, which will be difficult because financial institutions now know where he’s at, and will demand any property used to secure that loan be independently valued.

In other words, they won’t take his word for it. And if he chooses to sell some of that property empire in order to pay the fine, the world will see just how much it’s really worth. Lawyers will begin to ask for payment up front, because something else that is becoming better known is Trump’s habit of not paying his bills in full, or in some cases, not paying them at all.


NBC News noted that documents reviewed by USA Today included “More than 200 liens since the 1980s that were filed by contractors and workers who said they were stiffed … Records released by casino regulators in 1990 that show 253 subcontractors on a single project were not paid in full or on time”. As well as not paying workers minimum wage, or overtime.

Making money by stiffing suppliers, refusing payments for spurious reasons, and not even paying workers. As well as, it seems, fiddling property values and lying about it. But this is a tycoon who has his own Boeing 757, isn’t it? Well, maybe. But that aircraft is over 32 years old, it will cost him more and more to run, and you don’t skimp on maintenance on a 757.

Trump Force One, as it is known, has not, as far as is known, flown this year. It won’t be worth much now. So getting to all those other court cases won’t feature it. But the lies will continue, if not from Trump himself, then from members of his immediate family. After Judge Engoron handed down that penalty, it was son Eric who was first out of the dishonesty traps.

Eric claimed his father “built the skyline of New York City”, to which Rick Larios respondedTake random photos of NY's skyline...none will show Trump labeled buildings. If you were paying homage to NY's skyline, it would feature the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the World Trade Center, the Woolworth Building, the UN, etc. But not Trump”.

And MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell had heard enough. “Think about the size of this Eric Trump lie. Not one building visible in the NYC skyline is a Trump building. Now imagine the media reaction to Hunter Biden telling a lie of this size tomorrow.” Maybe those media double standards will fade a little as those pushing them realise what a fraud Trump really is.

The people want to know if their President’s a crook. Well, he’s not the President, but he is a crook. Shame on those promoting him.


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Friday 16 February 2024

Voters Already Decided - Told You So

Last month, I concluded that, whatever dirty tricks the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press deployed in order to frighten their readers back into line and support the Tories would not work. The electorate had already made its mind up, and that meant The Blue Team was toast.


And so it came to pass: despite Labour being given a week of torrid press, most of it self-inflicted and thoroughly deserved, the Tories have just experienced a double horror show overnight, with two safe seats lost in by-elections in the constituencies of Wellingborough and Kingswood. If the swing in the former were replicated nationally, only four Tory MPs would remain.

That swing was only 0.7% short of the 1994 record set when Labour took Dudley West. It was well ahead of the swings achieved by Labour last year in Tamworth, and Selby and Ainsty. It may not have helped the Tories that their candidate was the girlfriend of disgraced former MP Peter Bone, whose departure via a recall petition was what sparked the contest.

So what were Rishi Sunak’s excuses, apart from stating the bleeding obvious - that his party is finished and on its way out? As the BBC has reported, “The prime minister says midterm by-elections for incumbent governments ‘are always difficult’ and ‘the circumstances of these by-elections were of course particularly challenging’, after Labour overturned big Tory majorities in both Kingswood and Wellingborough”. So challenging that they lost.

Any more? “But, despite Labour’s swing in Wellingborough being credited as the second largest since the second world war, Sunak says ‘very low turnout’ is to blame and results also show ‘there isn’t a huge amount of enthusiasm for the alternative in Keir Starmer and the Labour party’”. The turnout in both Wellingborough and Kingswood was not low for a by-election.


Why are voters’ minds made up well before the General Election? Simples. The Tories are pursuing fringe votes with needless culture war tactics: sending desperate refugees to Rwanda, picking on Trans people, trying to frighten the electorate against Muslims, pretending only they can sort out all the strikes that are mostly of their own making.

Rail strikes? Could have been sorted long ago, but Sunak and his pals are rail haters and don’t mind damaging the industry - they want it damaged. Doctors taking action? The Tories could have sorted that, too, but they detest the NHS and would like to see it gone, replaced by a far more expensive system of health insurance. And the voters have them sussed.

Worse, scratching the racist itch and kicking followers of The Prophet has backfired spectacularly: Reform UK, formerly the Brexit Party, has scooped up more than 10% of the vote in both Wellingborough and Kingswood. Without any obvious assistance from former Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage. The hardcore Brexiteer vote has abandoned the Tories.

The result is that Sunak and his fellow Tories are Dead Politicians Walking. Nothing they do will turn it round. Also, as former Sun editor David Yelland has noted, “Overnight results show that, not since the 1930s, has the British popular press been so out of touch with the British people. The proprietors’ agenda is not the people’s agenda”. The propaganda ain’t making it.

So the Tories are not yet down and out. But you can see it from there.


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Wednesday 14 February 2024

Guido Fawked - Racist Mask Slips

When someone tells you who they are, as the saying goes, believe them the first time. The adage is certainly true of the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, who have just done a racism so egregious that it has now been pulled. It is shocking but not surprising.

Look who sits in judgment on others ...

After all, that first time came back in the mists of time when Staines was a student in Hull, and a member of the Federation of Conservative Students. As the Guardian reported at the time, “A leader of the Federation of Conservative Students wrote to an organiser of the British National Party proposing joint ‘direct action’ to disrupt the meetings of leftwing students”.

For some reason, The Great Guido is most sensitive about this part of his Curriculum Vitae, and the episode never stays on his Wikipedia entry for long. But back to the Guardian: “The author of the letter is Mr Paul Delarie-Staines, the chairman of the federation’s 50-strong branch at the Humberside College of Higher Education. Mr Delarie-Staines, who is in his first year of a degree course in business information studies, wrote on May 22 to Mr Ian Walker, a BNP organiser in Hull”. So what did Staines tell the BNP?

I share a lot of your objectives.' These included a return to leadership and statesmanship, the abolition of the welfare state, and ‘the elimination of Communism in Britain - the mass media, the trade unions, and the schoolroom”. Paranoid like Joe McCarthy. And then there is the racism.

While Ed Miliband was Labour leader, the Fawkes blog published two virulently anti-Semitic attacks on him. Both posts are still live as I type. He also sympathised with disgraced former MP Aidan Burley after the latter decided not to contest his seat in 2015 over a Nazi-themed stag party.

More recently, the Fawkes blog started calling anti-Semite on people who demonstrably were not, with the odd sly deletion when rumbled. Playing both sides of the racism field just like their pals in our free and fearless press. The Great Guido was caught siding with actual Nazis against a Jewish Labour MP. And also got caught using the Nazi-era “Cultural Marxism” trope.

... and look where he's at

Which brings us to the incident which caused a panicked Labour leadership to suspend PPC Graham Jones, after the Fawkes blog told that herepeatedly referred to ‘f**king Israel’ and even ranted to Azhar Ali at the now infamous Lancashire meeting that Britons who volunteer to fight for the Israeli Defence Forces ‘should be locked up’ … He claimed - falsely - that it was illegal for Brits to fight for Israel”. Why is that “false”, O Great Guido?

Many British Jews with dual citizenship have gone to Israel to fight … The claim that it is unlawful is an unfounded smear”. But Jones didn’t say anything about dual nationals. This is a logic leap of the kind previously favoured by Staines’ pals at the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance. Anyone who is not a dual national is breaking the law if they go off to fight for a foreign power.

So where’s the anti-Semitism there? Jones says “effing Israel”. Exasperation yes, anti-Semitism no. But Keir Starmer and his pals panicked. And rather too many in and around the right-wing press took the Fawkes rabble on trust. They may have chosen poorly, after Staines let the racism mask slip.

The thing that nobody says yet we all know, is that the Labour Party have chosen to seek unsophisticated Muslim community support for numerical reasons at the expense of sophisticated Jewish support” he claimed. And then deleted the effort, but not until after several observers had taken screen shots. That’s straight-up Islamophobia. And straight-up anti-Semitism.

Staines and his rabble are driving this pile-on against Labour. And that now deleted Tweet is where he’s at. He told you the first time that he was not only a straight-up racist, but also that he was prepared to play both sides of the racism field. Shame on the right-wing press for going along with him. And shame on Keir Starmer and the Labour leadership for not standing their ground.

And shame on anyone who believed the Fawkes rabble because they wanted to believe it, rather than it being factually correct. Same old, same old.


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