Here’s another email I received from the pro-democracy, open government organisation Open Britain. It’s another expose of the extreme right-wing thinktanks on Tufton Street. These want the privatisation of the NHS and other public services, the destruction of the welfare state, tax cuts for the rich and the very worst kind of Brexit, for ordinary people, a no-deal departure from the EU, These people have extensive connections to the Tory party, especially under Liz Truss, and to the aristocracy. The expose also notes that these thinktanks are given airtime and serious discussion while those holding left-wing policies, such as Proportional Representation, are shut out.
‘Dear David,
In our ‘long read’ email last week, we filled you in on our research into the UK’s failure to address illicitly funded political campaigns. Unfortunately, sketchy shell companies and untraceable political donations from Russian oligarchs are only one element of the dark money problem. Think tanks hold increasing sway in Number 10, and many do not reveal their donors.
Nowhere in the UK symbolises these kinds of organisations more than Tufton Street. The headquarters for hard-right libertarian lobbying groups, Tufton Street discreetly houses a network of different groups that generally oppose public services of all kinds, advocate tax cuts for the rich, and promote austerity. While not all these organisations are physically located on Tufton Street, the name has become a symbol for a particular brand of political lobbying – one that has all but taken over politics today.
In recent years, high-level think tank “experts” have found their way into increasingly influential positions, from Conservative Party conference to BBC Question Time to the corridors of Number 10. Nothing made this more evident than Kwasi Kwarteng’s ballistic mini-budget, which looked to implement unpopular trickle-down policies dreamt up in Tufton Street boardrooms. As former Johnson advisor, Tim Montgomerie stated with glee after the mini-budget: “Britain is now their laboratory”.
When was the last time the government listened to the constitutional experts who concluded that PR would improve representation, the electoral experts that said Voter ID would disenfranchise millions or the human rights lawyers that said the UK is violating international law? Clearly, it’s only a certain kind of expert that holds sway.
This week, we want to get into the think tanks on Tufton Street (and beyond) and the influences they’ve had on the last decade of Conservative rule. In another longer-than-usual email, we will demystify the deep-pocketed and enigmatic think tanks that exert so much power in this country.
Libertarian Nonsense:
These groups advocate for outdated and deeply unpopular policies which – instead of dealing with the UK’s growing income inequality – generally look to make it worse. They want to slash or eradicate public services, give tax benefits to the nation’s wealthiest, and crush unions. We don’t know who funds most of them, but it’s fair to say it’s probably people and companies with a vested interest in those policies. What we do know is that much of the money comes from hard-right American billionaires and multinational corporations.
Here’s a brief overview of the most prominent libertarian lobbying groups on Tufton Street:
The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) is a libertarian think-tank masquerading as an educational charity. Closely allied to Liz Truss, the group lobbied at least 75 MPs before her leadership victory and practically hand-wrote her “trickle-down” policies. The group does not disclose details of its funding, but a general breakdown reveals the majority comes from large businesses and wealthy individuals – we still have no way of knowing who they are.
The Adam Smith Institute is another libertarian group that claims it seeks to “use free markets to create a richer, freer, happier world”. In reality, they also championed the mini-budget that imploded the UK economy and directly influenced Conservative MPs to advocate for trickle-down policies. Like the IEA, they believe “the privacy of their donors should be protected” and refuse to say who funds them. However, their breakdown also reveals a majority from businesses and wealthy individuals.
The Taxpayers’ Alliance has been around for years, claiming to be non-partisan and ostensibly advocating for more responsible use of our taxes. Like the two groups above, it gets a transparency rating of E on openDemocracy’s transparency index. In recent years, they’ve joined the culture wars, going after LGBT organisations like Stonewall and notably having their talking points immediately repeated across the right-wing press.
As we’ll see, these right-wing groups not only hold massive sway in government and advocate for radical trickle-down policies but also hugely influence the debates on Brexit and climate. Most of the organisations we mention in this email are members of the Atlas Network, a group of over 500 such think tanks operating globally and headquartered in the United States.
Brexit Zealotry:
How many times in recent years were we told that being a member of the EU called the UK’s sovereignty into question? But did anyone ever ask what effect dark money-funded think tanks controlling government policy was having on our sovereignty? In an incredible twist of irony, these groups worked hard to cement a no-deal Brexit aimed at regaining our sovereignty while actively undermining it by exerting influence over the nation’s future.
The Tufton Street lobbying groups that pushed a hard Brexit:
The Institute for Free Trade (IFT), formerly the Initiative for Free Trade (they were initially unable to meet the formal requirements to be an “institute”), was launched by Liam Fox and Boris Johnson in 2017. It was chaired by Daniel Hannan, one the leaders of Vote Leave and the right-wing Koch-funded Cato Institute. They were exposed for offering US donors direct access to UK politicians, claiming to be in the “Brexit-influencing game”.
In 2018, the IFT published a US-UK trade policy paper written in consultation with dozens of other libertarian groups. It called for a no-deal Brexit, a “bonfire” of EU regulations (which we would later see under Sunak), and an NHS open to US market competition.The whole thing was designed to advance Boris Johnson’s radical Brexit agenda with the veneer of “expert” advice.
Dominic Raab and Liz Truss were under fire in 2019 for meeting with the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) off the books, with the think-tank bragging that it could “side-step” transparency requirements. At the time, the IEA was pushing hard for a no-deal Brexit that would see radical free-market trade reforms put in place between the US and the UK. The IEA’s lobbyist, Shanker Singham, also worked directly with the European Research Group (ERG), the ominous group of Euro-sceptic MPs that won’t reveal its list of members.
The Brexit project was partly made possible by mysteriously-funded think tanks that viewed a hard Brexit as an opportunity for their donors to make a killing in a deregulated UK market. It was a dirty, dirty game that – despite being fully exposed – is not talked about nearly enough.
It took Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s shambolic mini-budget to truly reveal the extent to which think tanks like the IEA, Adam Smith Institute, and others have massively disproportionate influence over British politics. In reality, it had been going on for far longer than that.
If Britain is the laboratory for a gang of dodgy think tanks, where does that leave ordinary people? It renders us powerless, left to be the guinea pigs of organisations that have no real connection to our lives, values, or communities. It’s the antithesis of democracy.
You’ll have noticed through our examples that Tufton Street operates as one giant network – bringing together staff and resources from across their global network. They also all seem to have backdoor access to Tory MPs, a nexus of corruption in the heart of politics aimed at undemocratically advancing the aims of a wealthy elite. In his new book Bullingdon Club Britain, Sam Bright (the journalist that broke the PPE contracts scandal) explains the Tufton Street network’s intrinsic connections to the British aristocracy in more detail than we have time for here.
It’s vital that the British public is aware of what’s going on behind the scenes and understands the impact these networks are having on politics. The next government needs to be under no illusion that the people of this country have had enough of this corruption of our system and want an end to the toxic impact of foreign billionaires and multinational companies. If we’re ever going to build a system that works for all of us, these kinds of actors need to be sidelined for good. They don’t have the country’s interests at heart.
It will always be difficult for ordinary people to take a stand against these insanely wealthy and highly organised forces, but we aren’t put off by the magnitude of the challenge. We know that those forces CAN be beaten through the collective efforts of the hundreds of thousands of us who care about this country’s future and who are prepared to take a stand to get our political system back on track.
Just this evening got this assessment of Rishi Sunak’s cabinet reshuffle, and how the Tories really are becoming more authoritarian and anti-democratic from Open Britain.
‘Dear David,
Today, Rishi Sunak announced the fifth ministerial reshuffle of the past year. Since Boris Johnson came to power, we’ve been through three PMs, four culture secretaries, four levelling up secretaries, five health secretaries, four justice secretaries, and five chancellors. All in (technically) one premiership.
This time, Sunak is splitting up the business ministry and DCMS, awarding promotions to some loyal colleagues and slight downgrades to others. Culture warrior Kemi Badenoch is now in charge of Business and Trade, and Lucy Frazer will become the 14th DCMS minister (now “CMS”) since 2010.
While democrats everywhere will be glad to see the back of Nadhim Zahawi – replaced as Tory party chair by Greg Hands – it’s hard to see anything particularly positive in this reshuffle. OK, the new departmental focus on net-zero and technology may give rise to clearer policy positions and/or more focused strategy, but it’s hard to see how this solves Sunak’s biggest problems…his weakness and lack of popularity. After all, the biggest drains on his credibility – Dominic Raab and Suella Braverman – remain in post.
Sunak has said that “the government needs to reflect the priorities of the British people and be designed to deliver for them”. He clearly wants us to think that this unelected administration, which has now ventured far from its original mandate, has some glimmer of democratic legitimacy. In the context of their dire polling, that seems laughable.
If anything, today’s events seem to confirm that this is indeed a zombie government, devoid of new ideas and simply going through the motions, pretending to work for the British people – without making any of the difficult decisions that would entail.
The hard right of the Tory party has no interest in proper democracy or the actual will of the people (or, indeed, the wellbeing of the traditional Conservative Party). Quite simply, their objective is to stay in power long enough to implement their extreme policies and bend our democratic system out of shape so that it operates in their favour in future. Sunak knows this but is too weak to stand up to them. That’s why Raab and Braverman STILL have seats in Cabinet.
Open Britain is working to ensure that everyone can have their voice heard at the next general election, increasing the likelihood that these anti-democracy zealots get swept away.
Our ‘Defending Democracy‘ core objective is about resisting the authoritarian legislation being pushed by this administration, AND fighting against the hard-right’s attempts to sow social division and skew our democratic institutions under the guise of legitimate and responsible government.
These tasks are two sides of the same coin: combining to ensure that the extremist minority at the heart of the current Tory Party and Reform UK are never again allowed to run this country into the ground against the wishes of the public. We can’t afford to be complacent or passive – we’ve got to bring the fight to them. And we will.
This week the Tories once again took away more of the British people’s hard-won freedoms with the Nationality and Borders bill, proposed by Dominic Raab and the noxious Priti ‘Vacant’ Patel. This allows the government to strip a naturalised Brit of their citizenship, without giving notice to the person concerned. It follows the 2002 act that allowed the government to strip someone of British nationality so long as they had another. Then there’s the 2014 Immigration Act, pushed through by Tweezer when she was home secretary, that allows the government to strip someone of their citizenship, even if it left them stateless, so long as they could apply to another country for theirs. The Home Office decided that notifying the person affected could be done simply by putting it in their file if their whereabouts were unknown. The High Court ruled that this was insufficient, and so Patel has including legislation exempting the process from judicial review. Which has been described by Ian Dunt at inews as retrospective legislation denying people their right to appeal. It doesn’t matter how long the naturalised person has been here. They could have been here their entire lives, Patel and Raab can still strip them of their British nationality. This has been excused on the pretext that it would stop foreign criminals using human rights legislation to avoid deportation, particularly under the legislation protecting ‘the right to family life’. This is another Tory lie. Mike has pointed out that no foreign criminal has ever dodged deportation using that clause. The effect of the act is to turn immigrants into second-class citizens. This has chilling implications for the rest of us, because what Tony Benn said was true: the Tories start their attacks on people’s rights with immigrants before moving on to the settled population. But as this appears to target Blacks, Asians and channel migrants, it will inevitably be supported by racists.
It’s alarmed very many people. The increased restrictions on immigration have been criticised by a number of Jewish organisation, including Reform Judaism. They have stated that Jews who fled to Britain in the 1930s were not protected in 2021. According to Zelo Street, the Board of Deputies has expressed similar concerns. But Zelo Street has also pointed out that Patel’s and Raab’s wretched legislation particularly affects Jews because of Israel’s ‘Right of Return’. According to this, all Jews everywhere have the right to settle in Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu went further, and declared that every Jew around the world automatically had Israeli citizenship. This didn’t impress the growing number of Jews critical of Israel and its persecution of the Palestinians. One Jewish American said on the Net how ridiculous it was that he, who came from Anchorage in Alaska and had never been to Israel, had the right to settle their, while his friend, a Palestinian, was banned from entering his homeland. And the Israeli state certainly seems to share this sentiment when it comes to The Wrong Kind of Jews. There have been a number of instances where Jews, who have voiced criticisms of Israel, have been very quickly rounded up by the Israeli authorities and put on the next flight home when they’ve tried to enter the country. It’s obviously a case of all Jews being citizens of Israel, except for those that aren’t.
But the effect of Netanyahu’s wretched piece of legislation combined with Patel’s and Raab’s is that any Jew, who gained their British citizenship through naturalisation can now be stripped of it, as there is somewhere else they can go. The Street notes that despite all the screams about Corbyn and anti-Semitism, in reality genuine anti-Semitism comes from the far right. And this is the direction in which this government is moving. The Street concludes
‘That may not be the current intention of Ms Patel and her pals. But, with the certainty of night following day, after they come for the Muslims, the far-right come for the Jews.
And the far-right have now been quietly emboldened. Be afraid. Be very afraid.’
Absolutely. But one other thing may be said about this vile piece of legislation and Britain’sJ ewish community:
It would never have been passed by a Corbyn government and Jews would have been protected.
Corbyn was never an anti-Semite. Indeed, he is one of the most anti-racist MPs and has spoken up in the House and elsewhere in support of the Jewish community. He was simply critical of Israel and its persecution of the Palestinians. But the militant Zionists, who denounced him and his supporters as Jew-haters don’t distinguish between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. As a result, Britain has been denied a government, which would have actively defended the rights of Jews alongside other ethnic groups. Instead we have an increasingly extreme right-wing Tory government, which is taking those rights away, alongside those of the mainstream, White, gentile population.
And unfortunately, this is a government that has the support of those who claim to represent Britain’s Jews. When Tweezer got in, she was congratulated by the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis. Who was one of those pushing the anti-Semitism smears against Labour. Now, partly thanks to this smear campaign, British Jews are left vulnerable to real anti-Semitic persecution. All done perfectly legally by the next racist, who fancies his or her chances as the new Oswald Mosley.
The BUF also had women members, who used to go out goose-stepping to defend Britain from Communism. I wonder if Patel’s wardrobe contains the odd black shirt and jackboots?
Mike’s put up a chilling post about the Tories’ latest attack on our civil liberties. It starts with a tweet from Paul Delaney stating that Dominic Raab plans to set up a mechanism in the UK’s human rights act which would ‘correct’ rulings by the European Court of Human Rights. Mr Delaney concludes ‘We live in dangerous times as Fascism looms large’.
Yes, we do. As Mike points out, this means that if the government does not like the decision made by human rights judges here in Blighty, he will override them. Raab has tried to excuse this attack on the judiciary by stating that it will somehow strengthen democracy by stopping ‘judicial legislation’. But as Mike explains, the judges don’t actually make laws. They simply apply them, and stopping them from doing so breaks the law. He goes on to explain
You see, so-called “case law” – legal precedents set by judges – are only examples of the way the law should be interpreted when applied to particular situations, to be followed if such situations arise again in order to avoid contradiction and confusion. They are not situations in which judges take legislative power for themselves and Raab is lying by suggesting that.
Mike’s article also contains a tweet from Nafzir Ali, explaining that the Human Rights Act is British law, enforced by British judges in British courts. We already have a mechanism for overriding it – legislation. It is dishonest to blame foreigners for it, and challenges to government are part of the basis of democracy.
Jonathan Jones, the former head of the government’s legal service, stated that as parliament was already able to do this, it seems that Raab is attempting to enable ministers to do so without parliaments approval. Mike’s article also quotes Cambridge professor of public law, Mark Elliott stated that giving ministers the power to overturn judicial decisions simply because they didn’t agree with them cut across ‘principles that are the fundamental components of the rule of law.’ Mike’s article goes on with this quotation:
“If that is what is in contemplation, then that is profoundly problematic,” said Prof Elliott. “Indeed it turns constitutional principle on its head.
“Ministerial power to do this would itself be deeply troubling. It would reassign a basic judicial role – interpreting the law – to ministers.
“Ultimately, this all strikes me as part of a project to enhance executive supremacy by treating courts, whether foreign or domestic, as unwelcome interlopers.
“And yet all of this masquerades as an attempt to protect parliament. The reality of this executive power project, as we might call it, is that it will be the executive that is the principal beneficiary of such changes, and the loser will be basic standards of good governance.”
Mike calls this whatit is: Fascism. It resembles the Nazis’ attack on the independence of the judiciary during the Third Reich.
The entry ‘Justice in Nazi Germany’ in James Taylor’s and Warren Shaw’s A Dictionary of the Third Reich (London: Grafton Books 1988) has the following passages. These show how the Nazis also attacked the judiciary in order to subordinate to their control. While much of this is far more extreme than what Raab is currently proposing, I’m including it here as a warning of where this ultimately leads.
Hitler’s revision of the laws of Germany did not affect civil laws, such as those on wills, torts, commercial contracts, but criminal law was massively restructured. By 1945, 43 crimes carried the death penalty. Judges who did not conform to the practice of Nazi justice were removed from office; only conformists survived. Their role was to maintain not ‘the state’ but the Nazi view of the state, preserving the existing volkisch (traditional ‘Aryan’ and Germanic) elements, punishing anything like anti-Nazi behaviour and getting rid of any obstruction to the Party’s will. Prosecution lawyers were given added powers and importance in court, while lawyers for the defence were weakened… To ensure the operation of Nazi justice, from 1942 judges and prosecution were allowed to confer without any defence lawyer being present.
From March 1933 Special Courts (Sondergerichte) were set up to try political offences without a jury. In 1934 the People’s Courts (Volksgerichthofe) were established to try cases of high treason, but with a jury drawn exclusively from Nazi party members. This was the court over which the vicious Roland Freisler presided in Berlin and which condemned those accused of complicity in the July 1944 bomb plot.’ (P. 198-9).
As Mike has also pointed out, this has been coming for a long time. The Tories have been stirring up hatred of the courts when they have dared to rule against them. Remember the Heil’s headline labelling the judges who upheld Gina Miller’s challenge to Brexit as ‘Enemies of the people’. That could have come direct from the Nazis, Italian Fascists, Stalin or any of the other totalitarian monsters. The independence of the judiciary has been a vital part of the British constitution with its origins going right back to the founding legal theorists of the twelfth century. It, and parliament, are part of what has made Britain a democracy rather than an absolute monarchy or dictatorship.
And now Raab plans to destroy this bulwark of British freedom. And he’s justifying it by claiming it’s all being done to protect our sovereignty from those evil Europeans. Just as Priti Patel is claiming to be protecting us from the threat of illegal immigration by planning to grant officials immunity from prosecution if they push the channel migrants back out, or don’t rescue them, and someone dies.
The great Tony Benn pointed out that before the Tories start taking away the rights of the settled population, they always begin with immigrants. It’s because they can count on a good reception from the right-wing press by dressing it up in nationalist garb.
But Raab’s attack on the European Court of Human Rights is just a pretext and the beginning. After he’s passed this nasty piece of legislation, he’ll be coming for more British freedoms.
This is a really excellent video from Double Down News, which shows you why the left-wing, alternative news and comment channels and blogs on the Net give you a better idea of what’s going on than the mainstream news. Not least because, as author, Guardian writer and green campaigner George Monbiot shows here, the mainstream media are conscienceless propagandists.
He points out that while Biden and Raab are taking the blame for the west’s collapse and withdrawal in Afghanistan, they aren’t the politicos primarily responsible for it. Yes, Raab is useless and shouldn’t have been on holiday when it all happened, and as for Biden, well, there’s no good time to lose a war. But the real responsibility for this debacle lies with the men who started it: George Dubya Bush and Tony Blair. And the media was solidly behind them. This wasn’t just the right-wing media, like that owned by Rupert Murdoch, but also the left. People like him who spoke out against the war were reviled and denounced as somehow on the side of the Taliban in an atmosphere that resembled the war fever of the First World War. He discusses the reasons why this was so, as well as attempts to present the war as somehow a war of liberation on behalf of Afghan women. And it covered the war without really showing the effects and destruction it was wreaking on the country’s people. One reason the media went along with it was because of their links to the military-industrial complex. But much of it is because the media thrives on spectacle, and war, with its lights and explosions, is a powerful one. The media’s attention is also short-term. It promotes one cause for a short while or one issue before dropping it and moving on to the next one. Monbiot states very clearly that we were lied to about the invasion of Afghanistan and the media was instrumental in the promotion of these lies.
Stylistically this resembles some of the great documentaries produced by Adam Curtis in the 1990s and 2000s. It contains much archive footage, including film from the First World War, as well as of ordinary Afghans in their damaged and wreaked homes. It also has shots of Murdoch and some of the other TV journalists celebrating the war for all they were worth. Thus there’s that infamous piece of footage where Geraldo Rivero raves when a bomb is dropped on the Taliban, and another piece where CNN anchors watch a bomb explosion through plane gunsights, proclaiming it to be the sight of ‘freedom’. One former member of The Young Turks really tore into that journalist for his glorification of death and suffering.
And Monbiot is exactly right when he says that the left-wing media were also complicit in the warmongering. They were. The Groaniad backed the war, and one of its hacks wrote a book promoting the new, nation-building imperialism. But, as Monbiot points out, they are now strangely silent about the role in the creation of this tragedy.
Blair seems to be trying to make a comeback, giving his opinions on everything from Brexit to Jeremy Corbyn over the past few years. I caught a glimpse of a piece on the internet newsfeed today which suggested he’d been giving his informed views on the dangers of extremism and islamophobia. Islamophobia is on the rise, and a large part of it was the strains and tensions created by Blair’s war. Some parts of the Islamic community became radicalised as they believed it was a war against Islam, while many ordinary Muslims simply became disaffected because of the invasions of their homelands. And as Monbiot also points out in the video, Blair and Bush hardly understood the country they were invading and had no exit strategy. Indeed there were claims that it would all be over by Christmas, just like the First World War. No-one should take anything Blair says remotely seriously ever again. Blair lied, people died.
And with very few exceptions, he was helped by the mainstream media. The people who are not telling you that the responsibility is also anyone’s except theirs.
Mike has been casting his bleak and jaundiced eye over Dominic Raab’s testimony about the current debacle in Afghanistan, and has asked a very serious question: has Raab just told parliament and the British people that our intelligences services have been outwitted by a bunch of desert-dwelling bandits? That’s the conclusion that follows from Raab’s statement that the government was informed that the Taliban couldn’t take power this year. Mike writes
This will upset the racists and Islamophobes.
Foreign Secretary (by the skin of his teeth) Dominic Raab was interrogated on the fall of Afghanistan by Parliament’s Foreign Affairs committee yesterday (September 1) – and said information provided by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) had told him the Taliban were unlikely to take control of Kabul at all in 2021, even after international forces including those fromthe UK had left.
Well, they got that badly wrong, didn’t they!
The JIC is a civil service body comprising senior officials in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Ministry of Defence and United Kingdom Armed Forces, Home Office, Department for International Development, HM Treasury and the Cabinet Office.
It oversees the work of the Secret Intelligence Service, the Security Service, GCHQ and Defence Intelligence.
Are we to take it from Raab that none of these organisations were intelligent enough to notice that there were real problems with the Afghan government and military that UK forces were leaving behind?
Is he really saying that the UK’s entire intelligence community was outsmarted by a gang of desert-dwelling bandits?
The plan was to leave Afghanistan defended by its own National Army – but we have discovered that this organisation was badly-trained (by organisations including the British Army, it seems) and riddled with corruption. Was Raab telling us that nobody knew?
After the United States broke the Doha Agreement’s May 1 deadline for leaving the country, the Taliban simply walked into Kabul and took over. Yes, This Writer is oversimplifying, but the amount of resistance provided by the Afghan National Army was minimal – and UK intelligence should have known.
Indeed, it is unbelievable that our intelligence agencies did not.
Still, there it is: Raab said the “central assessment” provided to ministers was that Afghan security was likely to suffer “steady deterioration” after US troops pulled out last month, but Kabul was “unlikely” to fall this year.
That assessment was wrong, and now we need to know who made it, what information they used to make it, and what information they ignored. Then we’ll need to see evidence of reforms to the JIC, to make it more intelligent.
If Raab is going to blame other government organisations for the incompetence we have seen over Afghanistan, then we need to see him make improvements – or we’ll face more humiliations, possibly involving large-scale loss of life, in the near future.
There’s a saying that goes ‘military intelligence is a contradiction in terms’. And sadly the argument that the current debacle in Afghanistan may have been caused by the incompetence of the British intelligence agencies will be all too familiar to readers of the parapolitics/ conspiracy magazine, Lobster. The mag was set up in mid-1980s on the premise that British intelligence, as well as those of the US and other western countries, was out of control and incompetent. This was based on the covert activities of the British state against the left, the disinformation campaign in Northern Ireland and the way decent politicians like Tony Benn and others were smeared as IRA supporters and sympathisers, and the way the same intelligence agencies have never been subject to official critical scrutiny for their subversion of domestic democracy and their failures. The reports compiled for Margaret Thatcher about the Middle East and elsewhere were so poor that the Leaderene never read them. I go the impression that they were also seriously unprepared for 9/11. After the end of the Cold War, it seems that Britain got rid of its Middle East experts and the security services instead decided that they were now going into corporate espionage.
The 7/7 bombings also caught the security services unawares. They stated that this was to due to failures on their part and asked for a massive increase in funding. This was automatically granted, but Blair’s administration did not ask how this money was going to be spent, what restructuring was needed or indeed exercise any real oversight over the security services. They simply accepted the intelligence agencies that parliamentary scrutiny could cause of breach of security and politely looked away and let them get on with doing whatever they wanted.
Not that the American intelligence agencies are necessarily any better. The CIA became notorious for its ‘health alteration squads’, or gangs of assassins. The Americans were also taken by surprise by the Islamic Revolution in Iran. The closest they got was a report by the CIA stating that the Ayatollah Khomeini would return to that ancient land to lead a Gandhi-like campaign of passive resistance. If only!
Unfortunately, it is only too plausible that the Taliban’s rapid seizure of power and our consequent scramble to leave is due to colossal errors by our intelligence services. Quite apart from the negligence and sheer incompetence of Boris and his wretched crew.
Zelo Street this afternoon has posted the results of a very interesting poll conducted by Sky News. The channel took a survey of 1,652 Brits, asking them about the lockdown, whether they trusted BoJob and Starmer, and also if they trusted the media, among other questions. Zelo Street’s article concentrates on the results for politicos and the media. Which are, ahem, interesting. And not good news for any parties, but especially not the ladies and gentlemen of the fourth estate.
The channel reported that although they were increasingly anxious and sadder, the British public were emphatic that the lockdown should continue. 51 per cent of the public trusted Johnson to tackle the Coronavirus, but 39 per cent don’t. This gave our clown prime minister a score of +12.
Only 25 per cent of those polled trust Starmer, while 34 per cent don’t, meaning that he has a score of -9.
Trust in journalists was very low. Zelo Street began its article by stating that the British press has been at the bottom of the league in Europe in the esteem in which it is held by the public. It’s trusted even less than the press of countries that have, within living memory, been dictatorships, like Spain, Portugal and the eastern European nations. Only 24 per cent trust TV journos, while 64 per cent don’t, giving them a net score of -40. Only 17 per cent responded that they trusted newspaper journalists, compared to 72 per cent who didn’t. They therefore had a score of -55.
Ian Dunt, a broadcast hack, tweeted that it was hard to overstate what a disaster those results were. A tweeter identifying him- or herself as the CEO Antifa answered him with “Remember when Peter Oborne tried to warn you all about this and got blacklisted by most publications?”. Zelo Street reminds us that Oborne, a journo of immense integrity, has warned for some time of the tendency of some in the broadcast media simply to repeat the claims of anonymous government spokespeople. He named Laura Kuenssberg and Robert Peston as two serious offenders. Zelo Street concludes
‘Now has come the public’s verdict. Don’t say you weren’t warned, media people.’
It’s shocking and dispiriting that just over half of the British public trust Johnson to battle the Coronavirus. This is despite the long list of his failures, beginning with the Tories’ underfunding of the NHS, their refusal to update the plans for a pandemic emergency and take on board the lessons from wargaming such an emergency way back in 2016, to Johnson’s refusal to heed medical advice back in January and impose a lockdown. It ignores the way Johnson, and some in the Tory ranks even now, pushed a pseudo-scientific commitment to herd immunity, which could leave up to 200,000 – 250,000 dead, in favour of the economy. And then there is the continuing failure to order sufficient supplies of PPE for the front line medical and care workers. The FT has now stated that the official figure of 18,000 deaths is an underestimate. It does not include those dying in care homes or at home. The real figure is 41,000. Some of these people could have been saved if Johnson had acted sooner. If he’d actually gotten off his Eton-educated arse and attended the Cobra meetings. If he really had worked all hours round the clock, instead of just having his shills tell us that, while he bunked off at weekends. If he actually took the work of government seriously, instead of simply acting out his power fantasies.
Nevertheless, the stats also show that trust in Johnson is falling. When Hope Not Hate did a similar poll a couple of weeks ago, they put trust in Johnson at 64 per cent. It’s down 13 per cent. No wonder that the Tory spin doctors are putting up fake twitter accounts and Tory front organisations are putting up spurious signs, all telling us how wonderful Johnson is and how the emergency services and NHS staff love him. He and his followers are afraid, because if the trend continues, after a couple of weeks trust in him will be as low as Starmer’s.
As for the public distrust of the Labour leader, some of that is a successful hangover from the vicious media campaign against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party. But some of it may well be due to his own background in the Labour far right, his lack of response to Johnson and his failure to act so far against the plotters and intriguers that deliberately sabotaged Labour’s election campaign. As has been pointed out, Starmer was a participant in one of the coups against Corbyn. He managed to score points earlier this week against Dominic Raab at Prime Ministers’ questions, but mostly he’s been quiet. He has taken zero action against the plotters, racists and intriguers named in the leaked report, instead seeming determined to find and punish the whistleblowers. Members are considering suing the party and asking for a return of their subscriptions on grounds of breach of contract because of the antics of the Labour plotters. If enough people did this, it would wreck the party.
Starmer could regain public trust by acting decisively against the plotters in the leaked document. The media now consider it a non-story, because it doesn’t conform to their predetermined desire to paint Corbyn as an anti-Semite. But he could make it the story and, if properly advised, actually do something Corbyn couldn’t do and take control of the narrative. He could also gain more trust by actually increasing his public profile. By taking the lead and publicly criticising Johnson. The way is open for him to succeed and gain the trust of the public.
But I fear he won’t, because that means acting against the very same right-wingers who worked hard to put him, or someone like him, in place as leader of the party.
But the media are in a marginally worse position, as their venality and bias has meant that public confidence in them, and especially after their massively biased reporting of Corbyn and the Labour party, is now at a record low.
If this continues, then, when the lockdown is lifted, the press will still see a collapse in readers because by that time people will have worked out that they’re missing nothing by not buying them and their lies.
The big news today is that the charlatan passing himself off as prime minister has personally come down with Covid-19. He showed mild symptoms of the virus, including a temperature, was tested for it, and the results were positive. He is therefore self-isolating in some corner of No. 10. Nevertheless, he was still keen to show that he was, in the words of one BBC news presenter this morning, ‘Tiggerish’. He was not incapacitated, and would carry on the business of government through teleconferencing and other methods. And if he does become too ill to govern, then the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, will take over. Lord preserve us!
Boris, as the Prime Minister, was in an especially exposed position because his duties mean that he has to meet many different people every day. Just like Prince Charles has, who has also contracted the disease. Fortunately, Boris has come down with it several weeks after he met her Maj, so she doesn’t have it. But it’s partly BoJob’s own fault that he’s got it. Mike today put up an article reporting and commenting on the fact that Boris was warned not to shake hands. But he carried on regardless, even boasting that he was. He would be all right, you see: all you needed to do was wash your hands, that was the important thing. Er, no. That’s why the health authorities have been telling everyone to stand 2 metres away from each other. Hand washing’s important, but on its own it won’t stop anyone getting the virus. As BoJob has just found out.
But this shows very clearly how seriously Boris and the Tories, or at least his circle, took the virus: not very. Mike quotes the New York Times, which comments on the woeful leadership our comedy prime minister has shown in this crisis. He’s been cheerful when he should have been grave, and presented a muddled message when clarity was needed. It’s a poor performance from someone who was selected because of their communication skills.
I think part of the problem comes from Boris’ own attitude to his briefs. George Galloway remarked during an interview that he’s know Boris for 20 years, and he doesn’t read the information given him. It’s why his performance as Foreign Secretary was such an embarrassing disaster. He went to Moscow to soothe relations with Putin, only to make matters worse with remarks about the Russian autocrat when he returned. And then there was that embarrassing episode when he visited Thailand, and the British ambassador had to ask him to be quiet when he was being shown round the country’s holiest temple. He started to recite Kipling’s ‘Road to Mandalay’, and couldn’t understand why that may not have been appropriate.
But there’s more than an element of willful ignorance in his attitude. Medical experts have said that he should have imposed the lockdown seven weeks ago. Boris didn’t, because he accepted Cummings’ bonkers, malign idea that all that was needed was herd immunity. The disease should be allowed to spread through the general population. No lockdown should be imposed, as that would damage the economy. This took priority over people’s health, and if some old people died it was just too bad. This policy is nonsense, the kind of Bad Science Ben Goldacre attacked in his book of that title. But even after Boris took the decision to close some businesses, pubs, clubs and other social gatherings were allowed to continue. Many Tories said that they were still going out for their pint, despite the government advising them – but not actually forbidding them – not to. Those still heading down the boozer included Boris’ own father, Stanley. The pubs and other establishments were only shut down, apparently, because Macron told Boris that if he didn’t, he’d close the French border. And that would seriously harm the economy.
And this lunatic attitude is still fervently embraced by some parts of the Tory establishment. This afternoon the Sage of Crewe put up a piece about another bonkers article in the increasingly desperate and bizarre Torygraph by a hack called Sherelle Jacobs. Jacobs has decided that Cummings was entirely correct, and BoJob has been panicked into adopting the present strategy by Imperial College research. She claims that there is ‘no consensus’ on how to handle the virus, but, as Zelo Street points out, she cites no sources for that view. And she also rants about how the strategy is also due to ‘liberal managerialism’ and ‘global elites’. She’s spouting dangerous nonsense, but she was supported in her delusion by Toby Young. Young declared that Boris was spooked by ICL’s modelling, but we don’t know how reliable that is, and that it’s beginning to look as if ICL exaggerated the risks of not adopting hard suppression measures. Which is more nonsense for which Tobes provides absolutely no data to back it up.
I’ve said in several previous blogs, as have many others, like Buddyhell and Vox Political, that Boris’ attitude is rooted in the Tories’ own eugenicist views. They regard the poor and disabled as ‘useless eaters’, who should be allowed to die so that the fit and the able, and most of all, the rich, should be allowed to prosper. Boris was content to tell the nation that many of their loved ones would die before the time, but wasn’t going to do anything about it, because their lives simply weren’t important. He and the others in his circle were fit and, as the rich and privileged, biologically superior according to their Social Darwinist views. Only the biologically inferior would catch it, whose lives don’t count and are an encumbrance to the right of the rich to do what they want and pay as little tax as possible. Now Boris has shown how irresponsible and stupid that attitude is by coming down with it himself. Positive thinking and a clean pair of mitts are important, but they won’t save you on your alone.
But the Torygraph’s refusal to accept that a lockdown is necessary is part of the Tories’ wider refusal to believe experts. The Heil and other right wing papers have published claptrap telling the world that global warming is a myth. Michael Gove famously declared a few years ago that people were tired of listening to experts. And I believe I recall that when one of the Tories – I think it was Iain Duncan Smith – was actually confronted with evidence showing his policies wouldn’t work, he had nothing to say except that he believed it.
Well, the Tories prefer belief and pernicious pseudoscience over reality. As a result, Boris has now got the disease and thousands more people are in danger of dying from it.
I found this in yesterday’s I, underneath an article reporting that Buckingham Palace has denied allegations that Prince Andrew exploited his position as trade envoy. It’s a short piece reporting that Jeremy Corbyn has called for ‘cuts to the Crown’, as the title has it. The article reads
The number of Royal Family members should be reduced, Jeremy Corbyn has suggested.
The Labour leader said he believed that the public would agree with him following the furore surrounding Prince Andrew’s relationship with the convicted American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Mr Corbyn has previously insisted that he does not want to abolish the monarchy. Interviewed on Sky News’s Sophie Ridge on Sunday, Mr Corbyn said ‘I think the behaviour of individuals within the Royal Family is being looked at, shall we say.’
The Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, said ‘We need to be respecting the institution of the monarchy. If Jeremy Corbyn is saying he wants to cut the numbers he should come out and say he wants to cut.’
It’s a bit rich for the Tories to complain about attacks on the monarchy, as they used to do it all the time whenever Prince Charles criticised their awful policies in the 1980s and ’90s. I also know Tories who despise Murdoch and his papers, which they see as exploiting and denigrating the Crown. And I think they have a point. For all that the Scum plays up and celebrates the monarchy, it’s also ruthlessly exploited and publicised royal scandals. Some of this might simply be to sell more newspapers, but I’m also highly suspicious that there are more personal political reasons behind it. Like in the last referendum on whether Australia should abolish the monarchy and become a republican, Murdoch came out very strongly urging his former compatriots to do so. This may well have done the republican cause Down Under more harm than good, as Murdoch became an American citizen for commercial reasons. As a foreign national, he wouldn’t have been able to own, or at least not own quite so much, of the American press and broadcasting. Nobody likes being told what to do, not least by people who have flown their own country, and the Australians voted to retain the Queen as head of state.
Although there’s a sizable minority that would like Britain to become a republic – the I’s Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has made it clear several time she’d like the monarchy to be abolished – as a whole it’s not a sentiment shared by the majority of the population. But just listening to the people around me, it’s clear that people are fed up with the state having to support various members of the royal family, who are not in line for the throne and don’t perform any clear role. Like Princess Eugenie, who wanted the taxpayer to spend several million on her wedding as they did for Princess Beatrice. Or was it the other way around? Either, ordinary people were not impressed with this display of royal entitlement. At the moment, I don’t think it’s a particularly big issue, not with more pressing concerns like Brexit, the Tories’ determination to sell off the NHS and utterly destroy the welfare state and the lives that depend on it. But it’s certainly an issue that will return, and at some point they might have to cut the numbers down in order to restore the Crown’s popularity. Especially if there’s another scandal like that of the present.
Remember Sargon of Akkad, otherwise known as Carl Benjamin, the Sage of Swindon? Sargon was the internet personality who, along with Mark ‘Count Dankula’ Meechan and Paul Joseph Watson, managed to destroy UKIP at the last elections. The party’s head decided that he could revive its flagging fortunes by inviting these three people aboard. He was counting on them bringing their audiences with them, but instead everyone with reasonable political opinions fled. Much of the rest went over to the Fuhrage’s new Brexit party, which is really just a corporate cult of personality pretending to be a party. Which left UKIP with a derisory membership and even more internal feuding, culminating in the resignation a few days ago of their Fuhrer, Richard Braine. Yes, Dick Braine was running the party.
As I’ve pointed out, Sargon has some extremely right-wing opinions. He’s anti-feminist, anti-immigration, and a ‘classical liberal’. Which means he’s a 19th century free trade liberal, who would now be an extremely right-wing Tory. He wants complete privatisation and an end to the welfare state, including the privatisation of the NHS.
So why give one of his videos a platform here?
Because on the subject of the Lib Dems, he’s right.
Sargon begins by talking about how the Fib Dems are doing extremely well in the polls, especially in Wokingham, Dominic Raab’s constituency, where they are only a few places behind the Tories. Jo Swinson, their leader, claims to be running a cleaner campaign, opposing the Trumpian politics of political deception. But as he goes on to prove, she and her party are using very Trumpian tactics.
He talks about the Fib Dem leaflet, that claimed that the Lib Dems were the leading party behind the Tories in Bath and North East Somerset. But this was in answer to a very specific polling question. Those polled were asked which parties they’d vote for, if the Tories and Lib Dems were neck and neck. The real opposition to the Tories in that part of Somerset, just south of me, is Labour.
He goes on to show the clip from Sky, where Beth Rigby tries to question Jo Swinson about this. Rigby rightly says it’s misleading. Oh no, denies Swinson, they tell you what the figures refer to. Yes, they do. In very small print of the type that people don’t read. Swinson then bangs on about how Labour voters, who don’t want Brexit, have been deceived and are turning to the Fib Dems instead.
And this isn’t the only instance where the Fib Dems were lying. Kate Burley also tried to tackle New Labour defector Luciana Berger on the subject of the Fib Dem’s mendacity. Berger is standing for them in Golders Green. Burley tries to pick her up on their election pamphlet, which quotes the Groaniad and Sky News as saying that the party’s ready to win the election. In fact those quotes don’t quite come from those sources. They come from Jo Swinson, as reported by the Groan and Sky News. But Berger denies any deceit. She just carries on with a spiel about how the Fib Dems have taken over from Labour as the opposition to the Tories in Golders Green, and that people are looking for a new type of politics.
And then Sargon shows just how Trumpian their election material is. Their pamphlets are all about Swinson, and how she’s going to be the next PM. It’s exactly like Trump, because like his campaigning, it’s all about the leader.
He also attacks another lie from the Fib Dems, where they claimed they were ahead of Labour and neck and neck with the Tories in Putney. Except that it was another lie. They’d never even polled in Putney.
The video ends with him attempting to rebut their stock rhetorical argument by saying that people should vote for them, as they are the only party that stands for Remain. But as Sargon reminds us, most people voted for Brexit. He has nothing against Trump and Trumpian politics, but they can’t say they’re opposed to it when they’re actually doing exactly that. They’re whole campaign is a good way of discrediting themselves.
This is all completely true, unlike just about everything Swinson says.
Mike put up a piece on his blog a few days ago showing how the Fib Dems were lying about their putative lead over Labour in BANES and elsewhere. But this is just one in a long line of porkies they’ve been spewing. Remember a little while ago, when Swinson was complaining that when all the other leaders were doing their best to campaign for Britain to remain in the EU, Jeremy Corbyn ‘was nowhere to be seen’? The truth was actually the reverse. Corbyn had been crisscrossing the country and travelling from city to city campaigning. It was Swinson who hadn’t. Except for one, halfhearted tweet.
Where were you, Swinson, when Remain needed you?
As for the image she tries to give of her party being full of ardent europhiles, keen for us to remain in the EU, only two per cent more of their membership are in favour of staying than the Labour party’s.
And Swinson has pointedly refused to say whether or nor she’d go into coalition with the Tories in the case of a swung parliament. Which means, to me, that she does. Which makes all the guff about her standing for Remain just so much electioneering rhetoric.
And Berger is also a liar.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Fib Dems have overtaken Labour in Golders Green. It’s because Berger and the rest of the Blairites, the Tories and the Israel lobby have been trying to scare Jewish Brits witless by telling them that Corbyn and his supporters are genocidal anti-Semites. The reverse is true. Corbyn has always stood up for Britain’s Jews, just as he has done so for all of Britain’s diverse communities. What Berger and her colleagues in the Blairites and the rightwing Zionist organisations found absolutely intolerable is the fact that he wants a genuinely just peace between Israel and the Palestinians. And hence the accusations of anti-Semitism and the hysterical screams that a Britain under his government wouldn’t be safe for Jews. Piffle.
Berger herself has genuinely received death threats and abuse online. But I think that some of her other claims of abuse by Labour party members have been shown to be false.
Berger is a liar, from a party of liars, led by a liar.
And you can tell the moral squalor of the party when someone as right-wing as Sargon points it out and almost looks good in comparison.
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