Priti Patel’s New Spokesman Speaks

After Brexit Party Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage first whined about small groups of refugees arriving on the South Coast in inflatable boats, and then toured the country whipping up hatred against a series of hotels that were temporarily housing those seeking asylum in the UK, Priti Patel, who has inexplicably been appointed Home Secretary, had to out-bigot him. And so it came to pass.

She was going to consider housing these people thousands of miles away. Or in another country (without asking first). Perhaps disused ferries could be stationed offshore. And while all of this was under consideration, she would Get Very Tough Indeed. There would be deportations. These would then be briefed to suitable press conduits.

And there is no more eager press conduit than the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole, now pretending to be political editor of the Murdoch Sun. So it was that he dutifully told “Home Office deportation flight this morning saw just ONE returned to France. 29 were pulled off the flight, including 18 last minute human rights applications. Some had weeks and months to put these claims in but only did so when faced with going back to France”.

All humans get human rights! Who knew? Then Bella Sankey corrected him. “None had weeks or months to put their claims in because they are only provided with an opportunity to speak with a lawyer at the 11th hour and sometimes not even then”. Mark George QC approved. “Well said Bella. Mr Cole represents a pile of toilet paper masquerading as a propaganda sheet. Like all good toilet paper, its only place is in the sewer”.

Would Master Cole care to prostrate himself before the Tories a little more? You betcha, says Sarah. “HO spokesman: ‘These claims are very often baseless and entirely without merit.. on this morning’s flight we received a large number of first time human rights claims, which have to be given appropriate periods of consideration.’”

One Tweeter noted. “This is called the rule of law Harry. The rue of law on which Britain is based means courts can decide on violations, not minister's arbitrary whims cheered on by hacks in the press. If you don’t like it go somewhere else without the rule of law”.

Master Cole’s less than totally moral stance - as well as his inability to interrogate his sources - caused the Tweeter known as Sue and John to call him out. “[Harry Cole] had a very privileged upbringing compared to most people, and will do practically anything to ensure that he retains that privilege, for him and his class. The phrase 'punching down' doesn't even get close to describe his selfish immorality”. Got it in one.

Moreover, his stance was not making friends or influencing people in the legal arena, as the Secret Barrister added “[Bella Sankey] has been on fire in the past 24 hours putting out #FakeLaw claims about immigration law all over the media. Please share her vital corrections”. Fake claims which come from Priti Patel’s spokespeople and are then relayed in true obedient client journalist style - unquestioningly - by the likes of Master Cole.

I don’t need to call out Master Cole for lack of morals. He does that so well himself.

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The President Is Seriously Ill

When alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson fell ill earlier this year after becoming infected with Covid-19, his spinners failed to level with the public: it was only after he was first taken to St Thomas’ Hospital, and then transferred to the intensive care unit, that it was conceded he was gravely ill. That tendency to dishonesty should be borne in mind when considering what is now unfolding in the USA.

There, Combover Crybaby Donald Trump has tested positive for the virus. His infamous Twitter feed fell silent yesterday, yet it was only when he was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD., that it came clear he was in a bad way.

Even before then, some had smelt a rat. Michael Moore mused “They claim Trump has only ‘mild symptoms.’ So why hasn’t he sent out a single tweet? … Something has to be very, very wrong for there to be no tweets for 15 hours - a record”. Glenn Kirshner of NBC News added “So Donald Trump has cancelled everything on his calendar, is sitting around w/a low grade fever & a fully charged cell phone & he hasn’t tweeted in 16 hours? I believe all this less by the minute”. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times brought the news.

“Via pool report, Trump is going to Walter Reed. Two sources familiar with the plan say he's expected to undergo tests”. Columnist Ian Bremmer responded “You don’t hospitalize the President only out of an ‘abundance of caution.’ He has world class medical care and they can get him to Walter Reed in a moment’s notice. This is a serious illness”.

Ana Cabrera of CNN found someone prepared to admit that. “A Trump adviser says there is reason for concern about Trump's health tonight. ‘This is serious,’ the source said. The source went on to describe Trump as very tired, very fatigued, and having some trouble breathing”. Orin Kerr noted “With the President's condition deteriorating, they decided Trump would go to Walter Reed now in part because he was still well enough for the photo op walking over to the helicopter, WaPo reports”. Trump wants to appear strong.

Meanwhile, the business of Government had to be considered. Chris Evans saw that “Nancy Pelosi has just been contacted by the White House on the protocols of continuity of government, according to MSNBC”. The urgency of such a move made sense after Nate Silver posted a photo with the observation “The vice president is seated next to a whole bunch of people who have tested positive and although he's tested negative, he's a long ways from being out of the incubation period”. Mike Pence could get it next.

All of which smacks of less than totally responsible behaviour by the Trump Gang. Not using face coverings, or distancing, especially at a White House event last weekend. Spencer Althouse of BuzzFeed noted of one of those at that event, “Claudia Conway just revealed on TikTok that her mom, Kellyanne Conway, has COVID: ‘She told me not to post this but I'm so furious please wear your masks guys’”. Ms Conway was there, and so was Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr. He may also have become infected.

Tellingly, Dave Wasserman added a coda: “That Biden is delivering his entire speech in Grand Rapids with a mask on speaks volumes more than any remarks he's delivering, and he knows it”. That White House bash is already being called a superspreader event.

Trump and his pals ignored the Coronavirus. But the Coronavirus did not ignore them.

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What Now For Laura Kuenssberg?

Those who look in regularly on Zelo Street may recall the occasion when a junior shadow minister resigned live on air, just before PMQs. This was then used by then PM Young Dave to taunt then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Those securing the on-air resignation were the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg, and then Daily Politics host Andrew Neil. An internal BBC blog called this “Making news on the Daily Politics”.

Making, and not reporting, news. Thus another minus against a political editor who has also looked very likely to have taken dictation from Matthew Elliott after Vote Leave were found to have broken the law. The resulting BBC report downgraded this to a mere breaking of the rules. And while Ms Kuenssberg is still in post, Brillo and the Beeb will finally part company after the US elections next month.

This morning, there were more raised eyebrows after she observed “Oops” when SNP MP Margaret Ferrier was found to have made a train journey from London to Scotland after knowing she had tested positive for Covid-19 - because that Tweet was immediately compared with her helpful explanation of why chief Downing Street polecat Dominic Cummings had not broken lockdown rules, when he, er, had broken lockdown rules.

What has also happened this week is that the BBC has appointed not an assistant political editor, but a deputy political editor. Pointedly not someone assisting Ms Kuenssberg, but someone capable of deputising for her, so not a replacement for Norman Smith. The last BBC deputy political editor, John Pienaar, was in his 60s when he left the Corporation for Murdoch property Times Radio. His successor has age on her side.

It was announced yesterday afternoon that “The BBC has announced that Vicki Young will be the BBC’s new Deputy Political Editor … Vicki Young is currently BBC News’ Chief Political Correspondent … She has worked for the BBC for more than 25 years, starting as a reporter at BBC Wales before joining the parliamentary team at Westminster. She became the BBC's Chief Political Correspondent in 2015”.

Ms Young has risen through the ranks without major fanfare, without fuss, and indeed without the controversy that has occasionally dogged Ms Kuenssberg. And that might just suit new Director General Tim Davie fine. Moreover, she is already taking the kinds of roles that one might have expected Ms Kuenssberg to fill: it is Ms Young who can be seen alongside the host on The Andy Marr Show™ paper review, for example.

So what will Ms Kuenssberg do next? Will she commit to remain at the Corporation, or leave for one more big payday, maybe alongside Brillo at GB News? While such a move would give her critics yet more ammunition - “See, we always said she was right-leaning” - the wad on offer might prove too tempting to turn down.

Right now, my Occam’s Razor is pointing at the Beeb hoping she will jump first, thus enabling them to give a fulsome farewell and avoid further controversy. Watch this space.

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Tory MP’s Lawbreaking Hypocrisy

Many of this morning’s front pages feature, to a greater or lesser degree, the story concerning SNP MP Margaret Ferrier and her train journey from London to Glasgow after she had received a positive Covid-19 test result. The i Paper points out “MP with Covid-19 broke rules five times”, while the Daily Mail has been particularly righteous.

Lucy Allan MP

They have gone full Dacre, thundering “ONE RULE FOR THEM! With quarter of UK plunged into local lockdown, MP ignores test and brings Covid to Commons - after Corbyn breaks ‘rule of six’”. As ever, the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker are always up for a kick at Jezza. But it is Ms Ferrier who has generated the most outrage.

She has since put out a statement, telling “I apologise unreservedly for breaching Covid-19 restrictions by travelling this week when I shouldn’t have. There is no excuse for my actions … I have used Test and Protect and I have notified the House of Commons authorities who have spoken with Public Health England. I have also notified the Police of my actions”. BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg added “Oops”.

This gesture did not impress Tory MP Lucy Allan, especially as it is now de rigueur for her and her pals on the Government benches to lay into the Corporation at every opportunity. And to show she really wasn’t happy, she responded “It’s not ‘oops’ - it’s reckless lawbreaking”. As Jon Stewart might have said, two things here.

One, as Peter Rudd put it, “It certainly is, but your response appears different dependent on the politics of the person breaking the law. Just in pursuit of balance, did you just vote to break the international law that your leader negotiated, you stood on at the last election & parliament voted for, please?” We most likely won’t be getting an answer from Ms Allan on that one for some time, if at all. Then came Two, the inevitable Covid-19 comparison.

Liz Gerard saw the exchange featuring Rudd and Ms Allan and decided to raise her: “and did you support Dominic Cummings's ‘reasonable’ trip to Durham and his eye-testing outing to Barnard Castle? And how do you feel about the maskless Stanley Johnson, who ‘didn't know’ about the laws his own son had made?” We won’t get an answer on that one, either. And Johnson père’s no-mask shopping indiscretion was only the other day.

Where was Lucy Allan’s protest when chief Downing Street polecat Dominic Cummings was caught bang to rights lockdown-busting? How loudly did she complain that a mere SpAd was allowed not only to get away with breaking lockdown, but was given his own Downing Street press call to excuse his actions? We blinked and missed it.

Of course, Lucy Allan is not alone: many more of the Tories’ Commons cannon fodder have been sounding off about Margaret Ferrier, while turning a blind eye to The Flight Of The Polecat, and having supported the Polecat Enabling Act, sometimes called the Internal Market Bill, which would breach international law just by being passed.

No-one should take lessons from the Tories on breaking the law. That is all.

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Julian Assange And BBC Non-Coverage

After much delay, and with its subject having been imprisoned for what appears to be no good reason all the while, the extradition trial of Wikileaks man Julian Assange began last month. On September 7, the BBC reported that “Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange appeared in the dock at London's Old Bailey as his fight against extradition to the US resumed … If convicted in the US, he faces a possible penalty of 175 years in jail”.

The Beeb also told that “During Monday's hearing, the court heard Mr Assange, an Australian national, was re-arrested minutes earlier on a new indictment issued in June … Edward Fitzgerald QC, representing Mr Assange, said he had not seen his client in person for six months in part due to the pandemic - and he told the court the latest indictment had been made ‘at the 11th hour’ without warning”. That sounded worrying.

And there was more. “But a bid to rule out the new charges failed, with District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruling they must be heard in the context of the extradition request … A separate request for an adjournment to allow Mr Assange's lawyers to respond to the new charges was also refused”. That alone merited close attention being paid to proceedings.

So it was that some did indeed pay close attention to proceedings, with James Doleman (for instance) Live-Tweeting each day of the trial (see his Twitter feed HERE). From his reporting we know that proceedings have been adjourned, Assange has been taken back to Belmarsh Prison, and the Judge will give her verdict on January 4 next year.

But that information appears to have passed the BBC by. Their report in early September was their last to date. Not so, for instance, the Guardian, which has reported on aspects of the case twice this month already. Nor the Independent, which has reported that Assange would be housed at an infamous Supermax prison if extradited. Even the Daily Mail has been carrying regular updates on the trial. So the BBC has no excuses.

Now, Julian Assange may have been an enormous pain in the neck in his dealings with parts of the media, even those who have been sympathetically disposed towards him, and the Wikileaks material he allegedly facilitated may have helped Combover Crybaby Donald Trump in the run-up to the 2016 US Presidential Election, but journalism is not terrorism. Nor is acting in a way that makes the spooks uncomfortable.

Journalism also means reporting openly, and not selectively: as Media Lens has pointed out, the BBC had a reporter at the trial every day. But there have been no further reports. Not even one on the final adjournment of the case yesterday. It’s not as if the Beeb does not have the means for their court reporter to put out updates, even if only online.

After all, the Corporation has managed in the meantime to profile Assange, and his partner. So they could - and should - have reported on his extradition trial.

The BBC needs to stop running scared of the Tories and their pals in the press - and start doing what we pay the licence fee for. Like reporting the news. Hint.

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EU Lawsuit - Brexit Reality

There would be no downsides, merely upsides, we would be masters of our own destiny, it would hurt the EU more than it would hurt us, the EU would cave in at the last minute, and in any case all those German car manufacturers would lean on their Government as in some modern-day equivalent of the cavalry coming into view over the horizon.

That was one big lie. It was called out as such, but time and again, the jolly Brexiteers shrugged it off by telling their easily led supporters that it was nothing more serious than “Project Fear”. It was not, and now has come Project Reality: after the Tories’ Commons cannon fodder voted earlier this week to break international law, the consequences that thy were told would ensue have come to pass. The EU has launched a legal action.

As the BBC has reported, “The EU has begun legal proceedings against the UK after it refused to ditch plans to override sections of its Brexit divorce deal. An EU deadline for the government to remove sections of the Internal Market Bill passed on Wednesday … The letter sent to the UK is the first stage in the process the Commission uses against countries it believes have broken EU law. It can end with the Commission taking governments to court at the European Court of Justice”.

And where were all those EU member states that we were told were “moderate”, those that would lean on the rotten Brussels Eurocrats to back down and cut a deal? There weren’t any, and there aren’t any. The UK has expended any goodwill it might have had, the other member states have run out of patience with our pissing them about, we’ve signalled our intention to break the law, and this is the consequence.

While Steve Peers of the University of Essex has outlined the process (thread HERE), David Henig observed “Will not be a surprise to the UK government, the Internal Market Bill is a prima facie breach of Articles 4 and 5 of the Withdrawal Agreement, and the EU really had to take action … Big question as to the exit route from this, especially if UK government doubles down”. Clue: if it does, it’s going to get messy.

Even the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg could not avoid pointing out what this means: “This is important in context of souring relations and trust.... but it is not unexpected or unprecedented”. Relations are already at rock bottom. The Tories’ action means they will stay there for a very long time to come.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg Business has another of those inconvenient reminders: “Ahead of Brexit, financial services firms have already shifted about 7,500 employees and more than $1.6 trillion of assets from the U.K. to the EU”. No-one is riding to our rescue. Thundering front page headlines have had, are not having, and will not have any effect.

For alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, chief Downing Street polecat Dominic Cummings, the scheming Michael “Oiky” Gove and the rest, this is all a game. For the millions about to be screwed over, it is anything but.

Brexit reality just arrived. How’re those free sovereign apples tasting right now?

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Nigel Farage Antifa Lie BUSTED

As the candidates sparred their way through the first Presidential debate the other night, watching and cheering his pal Combover Crybaby Donald Trump was Brexit Party Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage. Nige was ready to talk up The Donald and diss Joe Biden in whatever way he could, which meant talking well, but lying badly.

Sadly for him, he did this on an open Twitter feed, and so the rest of the world could call him out. So when he asserted “The Green New Deal is a fantasy. It will cost jobs”, along came Dan Clarke to remind him “You spelt Brexit wrongly”. When Farage claimed “Trump is superb on law and order. His best part of the debate so far”, there was just derision.

Then, after he pitched “Joe showing first signs of tiredness. Could be a long 45 minutes for him” (it was 90 minutes, Nige, details, eh?) and was rebuked by one Tweeter pointing out “Don't mistake exasperation for tiredness”, the law and order business arrived at far right violence, which Trump tried to blame on the left, while convincing no-one.

This was difficult for Farage, especially as Trump uttered the line “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by”, which he has tried to row back since, to little avail. The neo-Nazi group has taken the remark as a ringing endorsement. Instead, Mr Thirsty homed in on Antifa, an area where he was keen to show he was in lockstep with the Trump campaign.

And it was at this point that the Farage pants spontaneously combusted. “Antifa is a domestic terrorist organisation. Far from condemning them, Biden says ‘they’re just an idea’. Disgraceful”. The problem for Nige is that Biden is right, and he is wrong. Antifa, for starters, is not an organisation. And calling it one will not change that reality.

Carole-Anne Collins asked The Great Man “Where's their HQ Nige? Who are the ‘organisation’s' leaders? Come on, tell us all”. Benjamin Smith was unconvinced. “They're not an organisation Nigel. Basic stuff. There's no central organisation. Stop talking about things that you blatantly don't understand. It's getting embarrassing”. Indeed it is.

As a Vox article put it, “It is not a unified organization, but rather a loose ideological label for a subset of left-wing radicals who believe in using street-level force to prevent the rise of what they see as fascist movements … Internal FBI assessments and protest-related court documents tell a consistent story: Antifa members are not responsible for the unrest … the ‘antifa’ discussed in the president’s tweets and on Fox News … are a trumped-up boogeyman for the conservative movement”. Including Nigel Farage.

The Vox piece also reminds us “Antifa’s origin story begins in the 1930s, in two European countries: Germany and the United Kingdom”. Like in the resistance to the British Union of Fascists that culminated in the Cable Street protests. Which side of those protests would Nigel Farage have been on? Who were the domestic terrorists then?

Which side would he have backed in World War 2? Don’t all shout at one, Farage fans.

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