Yesterday’s I newspaper also carried some very interesting and important news in an article by Paul Gallagher. The article ‘GPs ‘shifting support to Lib Dems’ is mainly about the majority of GPs supporting the Liberal Democrats rather than Labour or the Tories. But the really important stuff is in the last paragraph, where it reports
But Labour remained the party GPs believed would look after the NHS – 30 per cent trusted Labour, 20 per cent opted for the Liberal Democrats and 14 per cent chose the Conservatives. Some 30 per cent chose “none of the above”.
This follows the Tories promising that they will increase spending on the NHS by £20bn a year by 23-4, Labour stating it would be £26 bn a year and the Fib Dems that they would increase it by £35 bn over the next five years. Apparently only 20 per cent of GPs say the will vote Tory at the next election, whereas 30 per cent said they would at the last one. Support for Labour was also down 10 per cent. 31 per cent of GPs had said they would vote Labour at the last election, but now it’s only 21 per cent. 31 per cent of GPs, however, say they will vote Lib Dem, up from 19 per cent at the last election. This is according to a survey conducted by GPonline.
A few remarks on this. Firstly, this poll only records the way those GPs, who responded to the survey said they would vote. These may unrepresentative of the great majority of GPs for various reasons. For example, the GPs, who replied are obviously those with the time and motivation to vote. Others may be too busy or otherwise not motivated.
Secondly, it shows that the Lib Dems have eaten into the Labour vote through Jo Swinson presenting herself as a progressive alternative to Labour’s extremism and anti-Semitism. But this is a mistake. Labour is neither anti-Semitic nor extreme. Corbyn’s policies are simply a return to the social democratic consensus which delivered over three decades of prosperity and economic growth after the War. And the Lib Dems are not in any way progressive. Jo Swinson consistently voted with the Conservative government, far more so than many leading members of the Tory party. She fully supported the swingeing welfare cuts, the privatisation of the NHS, the bedroom tax and other Tory attacks on the poor and vulnerable. How progressive is someone really, who wants to put up a statue to Margaret Thatcher? Clearly she isn’t, and only 2 per cent more of her party support Remain than Labour. As she seems ready to do a deal with the Tories and go into coalition with them as he predecessor Nick Clegg did, rather than support Corbyn, it seems that she personally only regards supporting Remain as a temporary electoral strategy. If there’s a hung parliament, you can bet she’ll be round Johnson like a shot pledging her support.
I also feel that belief in the Labour party as the true supporters of the NHS would be higher, if Blair’s new Labour hadn’t been so determined to privatise it through the introduction of privately run health centres, the award of contracts to private healthcare firms, including GP services, and the introduction of the Community Care Groups, who were empowered to raise funds through private enterprise and contract in private services. It’s these Blairite policies, which spring from Blair’s own Thatcherism, that Corbyn intends to remove.
The real message, for anyone who genuinely prizes our NHS, is that only Corbyn’s Labour party can be trusted with it. Not Johnson, not Swinson, just Corbyn.
This is another satirical video from those merry funsters at JOE. Unlike the others I’ve posted, it’s not musical. It simply pokes fun at Farage and his megalomaniac ambitions as a kind of mini-me of Trump. It seems to be based on footage of a Trump rally at which a small boy came on to the stage. Except that the child’s head has been replaced with Farage’s.
The video begins with Trump introducing Farage to the crowd as the man behind Brexit. Mini-Farage then walks on stage, to be picked up by Trump. The Orange Buffoon asks the lad what he’s called. Mini-Farage answers, ‘Well, people in Oxfordshire call me Farage’. Trump also asks him if he’d like to go, or stay with Trump. After thinking about it, Farage replies ‘Stay with Trump’.
The video comes from 2016 when Farage and UKIP were far stronger than they were. If memory serves me right, it was before Farage left to found the Brexit Party and UKIP was taken over by Batten, who introduced into it the far right internet personalities Carl ‘Sargon of Akkad’ Benjamin, Mark ‘Count Dankula’ Meechan and Paul Joseph Watson. Instead of boosting UKIP’s fortunes, their arrival has very effectively destroyed it, leading to the massive implosion after the local and European elections and the acrimonious recriminations that have broken out since.
Farage now appears to be pinning his hopes on becoming a political force with the Brexit party. But he’s now stood a very great number of his candidates down in Tory constituencies so as not to split the right-wing Brexit vote, the Tories are demanding the removal of the rest of his people, and the former candidates themselves are angry and considering legal action. And he himself is not standing for election, as he’s never personally won an election before. His view of himself and his party as becoming a significant power in British politics is thus probably more than a little exaggerated.
But at that time he was running around with Trump at Republican and American Conservative conferences and other gatherings. And he was very much boosting Trump and his policies as well as his own. I don’t doubt for a single minute that Farage would happily give Trump everything he wants from a Brexit Britain – our agriculture, manufacturing industry and a privatised NHS. Farage has said himself that ‘we may have to move to an insurance-based system’, which is precisely what American private healthcare companies, as well as British firms like Virgin Healthcare, Circle, BUPA and so on want to hear.
But Farage’s fortunes have definitely waned, and it’s Boris who’s now occupying No. 10. But he also wants to give Trump what he wants. And despite Tory splutterings that the NHS was ‘off the table’, they held six secret meetings with Trump’s negotiators about it. Boris Johnson sees it very much as something that is for sale. He just doesn’t want to tell the British public about it, just as Thatcher in her memoirs also lied, claiming that she didn’t want to sell off the NHS. It’s now Johnson who’s running around as Trump’s mini-me.
Don’t be tricked by either Farage, Johnson or Blue Lib Dem Swinson, who would also like to sell off the NHS. If you value the Health Service and wish to defend it, you really have no choice but to vote for Corbyn.
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.
This fortnight’s issue of Private Eye also has a few choice things to say about David Cameron’s new book, For the Record. This seems to be largely his attempt to justify his wretched tenure of 10 Downing Street and the havoc he caused. The book’s reviewed, and comprehensively and thoroughly trashed, in their ‘Literary Review’ column on page 34 in a piece titled ‘Shed tears’. It’s a long review, which can be summed up by saying that Cameron keeps trying to claim that his government left Britain stronger, more stable, and more prosperous. To which the Eye’s answer – and just about everyone else’s – is Brexit, and a few telling details refuting the Old Eton’s bogus claims.
The magazine’s ‘Medicine Balls’ column also attacks some of Cameron’s claims. It begins by refuting BoJob’s claim that he’ll build 40 new hospitals, before going on to tackle Cameron’s little stories. Including the former PM’s claim that he wasn’t really responsible for the Health and Social Care Act of 2012. This is a nasty little piece of legislation which, behind its convoluted verbiage and tortuous clauses, exempts the Health Secretary from having to provide Brits with universal healthcare which is free at the point of service. It’s a piece preparing for the wholesale privatisation of the NHS, and is duly attacked as such in the book NHS – SOS. As Prime Minister, Cameron is responsible for the Act. Except he claims it’s all the fault of his Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, and the Lib Dems. The Eye writes
Then there is the small matter of repairing the disastrous Health and Social Care Act, a Trojan horse for outsourcing NHS services to the private sector via an astonishingly wasteful process of repetitive, competitive tendering. David Cameron, in his autobiography, places the blame for the act on his health secretary Andrew Lansley, the Lib Dem coalition partners and the British Medical Association (BMA): “Andrew Lansley … was too submerged in the detail. The jargon he’d use was baffling. I remember sitting in cabinet when he shared his reform white paper. it was like an artist unveiling a piece he’d spent years on, and everyone wondering what on earth it was.” So why did he allow such chaos to progress?
It was the Lib Dems fault, claims Cameron, that he was forced to abandon his pre-election pledge of “no top-down” reorganisation” of the NHS, because they insisted that primary care trusts should be abolished rather than left “wither on the vine”. Then there is the BMA, which Cameron declares “will oppose anything, whether it is a good idea or not.”
(Eye page 17).
From this it’s clear that there was little ideological difference between Cameron and the Lib Dems. Both wanted the primary care trusts to go. It was simply a difference of the means.Cameron wanted them to decay quietly, the Lib Dems wanted abolition.
The column also attacks Comedy Dave’s pledge to support the NHS:
But he also promised to “always support the NHS with the funding it needs”, which he manifestly failed to do. And the promises in his 2015 manifesto – “to make the NHS the safest and most compassionate health service in the world” – were always phoney given the lack of resource, capacity and staff.
The article does admit that Cameron did some things right, such as highlighting the dangers of anti-microbial resistance, but attacks his role in provoking the junior doctor’s strike by demanding they work weekends, based on flawed, decades-old statistics.
From this it’s very clear that, whatever he says about Lansley’s Health and Social Care Act, Cameron was in favour of the privatisation of the NHS. No surprise there, then. He’s a Thatcherite, and Maggie Thatcher wanted to privatise the NHS. She couldn’t, because her Personal Private Secretary, Patrick Jenkin, found out how awful the American, insurance-based system was, and there was a massive cabinet rebellion. But she was determined to open it up to private industry. This was taken over by Peter Lilley and John Major, who introduce the Private Finance Initiative, and then by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who expanded it in their turn. It was then taken up, once again, by David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Tweezer. And I’ve no doubt Johnson also wants to privatise it, after he gets through ruining the country with his assaults on the sovereignty of parliament and a ‘no deal’ Brexit.
And the Lib Dems share the Tories’ determination to destroy the NHS. At the last election, Nick Clegg stated that he wanted to open the NHS up to private industry, as those countries, whose healthcare had a mixture of state and private provision had ‘better outcomes’. It’s a flat-out lie, or it was until he and the Tories started their disastrous campaign of trashing the NHS. And Swinson shares his goal of privatising it. She consistently voted for the government’s bills, and supported them far more than some front bench Conservatives.
Despite this, she claims that she and her party are ‘progressive’, solely because it ostensibly supports ‘Remain’. But this is sheer opportunism. When it came to the referendum, she issued a single, lukewarm tweet and was nowhere to be seen, while the Labour leader she reviles was travelling up and down the country. As for her party, the proportion of Lib Dems who support ‘Remain’ is only two per cent higher than that of the Labour party. Her whole pro-Remain stance is a lie, as is just about everything she says.
Don’t be fooled. Both the Tories and Lib Dems want to privatise the NHS. The only person who doesn’t, and will block it, is Jeremy Corbyn.
Scottish Lib Dem MP Jamie Stone royally let the cat out of the bag when he appeared on Politics Scotland. He was asked “If no-one else does emerge and the choice that you face is between Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister or a no-deal Brexit, then your position is – you’re a pro-European party, you’re anti no-deal, where do you stand? Is it Jeremy Corbyn or is it no-deal?”
To which he replied “It is no deal every time”.
This contradicts the Swinson’s lie, er, sorry, line, that the party is equally opposed to both Jeremy Corbyn and Brexit. How did Stone cope with his faux pas? He did a reverse ferret, and did what his party has been doing ever since they got into bed with the Tories all those years ago: he started lying.
Stone then claimed “I was quite clear in the whole interview that I oppose no-deal and oppose putting Jeremy Corbyn into Number 10.
Mike comments ‘So, “it is ‘no deal’ every time” means “I oppose ‘no deal’”? I don’t believe that.’
Stone then continues “It is no use Labour deliberately misquoting me so as to twist the truth.”
And Mike duly corrects the record, reminding everyone that it ain’t a misquote, it’s what he said.
He goes on to bluster that people don’t have to choose between a no-deal Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn. The Lib Dems are working across parties to stop Brexit and find a prime ministers who has the numbers to do that.
Mike points out that this would be Jeremy Corbyn. Who would have the numbers to stop a no deal Brexit, if Swinson and the Lib Dems backed him. But they won’t. This, he suggests, is due to the Lib Dems Team 320 to get Tory enabler Swinson herself into No. 10.
Mike comments
It seems clear, then, that they are waiting for Boris Johnson to fail in his bid to achieve Brexit by October 31, in the hope that a general election will then win the support of Parliament and that they can win it.
This would be hilarious if it wasn’t so dangerous.
He asks whether the Lib Dems haven’t realised they’re giving Boris more time to get the Brexit he wants, and that they’re asking for support from the very people they shafted by getting into bed with the Tories until four years ago.
He concludes
Jo Swinson is an embarrassment to politics. So is Jamie Stone.
But a worse embarassment would be letting them screw up our chance to get rid of our festering Boris Johnson-infested Tory government.
Mike’s right about all of this, but I don’t see the Lib Dems as a genuine party of ‘remain’. Their stance on this is a fraud, as is their entire party.
Apparently, the proportion of Lib Dem members supporting Remain is only 2% higher than the Labour Party. Swinson herself did precious little to back the ‘Remain’ campaign during the referendum. While Corbyn crisscrossed the country, Swinson issued one, lukewarm tweet.
I very, very much doubt that she personally backs ‘Remain’ at all.
But she does back the Tories. She consistently voted for all of the Tory government’s policies, including its attacks on the NHS, welfare state, education, the whole lot. She’s a ‘progressive’ who wants to put up a statue to Maggie Thatcher. Who was a friend of the Chilean Fascist General Pinochet.
She’s a liar and a fraud. Her party are also lying to you. They want another right-wing government with them in it, which will privatise the NHS and cut welfare benefits even further. They also want a ‘no deal’ Brexit, but realise that to get support they have to pretend to be the party of Remain. And hence all the lying about how Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t have the numbers, isn’t the right man, etc.
Behind the yellow facade, they’re just Tories. Treat them like it, and don’t listen or give them your precious votes.
Alexei Sayle, one of the pillars of the ’80s Alternative Comedy wave which spawned The Young Ones, French and Saunders, the Comic Strip and Ben Elton was interviewed in yesterday’s Metro (27th September 2019). The man’s 67, but still angry – although the interview also says he’s mellowing – and stars in a series on Radio 4 set in a sandwich bar and due to have a headline gig at the Southport Comedy Festival. Speaking to the paper’s Jade Wright, Sayle talked about his career, the state of modern comedy and attacked austerity, the Tories and supposedly ‘moderate’ politicians, who support them. It’s interesting in that Sayle also champions Jeremy Corbyn, without the paper trying to attack the Labour leader in response or a snide aside. The interview on page 51 and continued on page 54 is entitled ‘Sayle Now On’. It’s too long for me to type it up as a whole, but here’s the bits where he mostly talks about politics, along with his family background and the lack of left-wing comedians today.
Alexei Sayle might have been in the comedy business for 40 years, but he’s not lost any of his flair for contemporary analysis. His take that ‘austerity is the idea that the 2008 financial crash was caused by Wolverhampton having too many libraries’ has been spreading like wildfire on social media. May that’s because, as he claims, there’s a surprising shortage of anti-establishment comedians.
‘There’s a gap in the market. Even if they didn’t believe in it, you’d expect someone to do it, just for the money,’ he says. ‘there were loads of left-wing comedians in the 1980s. Where are the new Ben Eltons now?’
His new Radio 4 show, Alexei Sayle’s Imaginary Sandwich Bar, in which the Wolverhampton library gag first appeared, is the Liverpool comedian on his usual erudite, and angry, form. As is evident from the show, he’s become a passionate advocate for Jeremy Corbyn and the grassroots movement he has created. ‘When people sneer at Jeremy Corbyn, it drives me nuts,’ Alexei says. ‘To hear him being called a racist by racists, it’s beyond belief. And yet I have friends who are taken in by this s**t.’
‘I hear him talk, and it makes sense, then it gets deliberately misrepresented by people who have something to gain from that, people who are very much part of the establishment.
Alexei grew up in Liverpool. His mum, Molly, was a pools clerk from a Lithuanian Jewish family and his father, Joseph, was a railway guard. Both were members of the Communist Party. But, while always political, he was keen from a young age to find his own voice. ‘I don’t have a crystal ball, but I think things are changing’, he says. ‘Voters are seeing through the politicians who claim to have moderate views, but actually what they’re saying is really quite extreme.
‘For a long time the politicians from all parties were all fighting over the votes in the middle. Politics went from strongly right-wing to mildly left-wing and there were lots of voices that didn’t get heard at all, loads of people who didn’t vote.
‘You had all these modern, careerist MPs who were almost indistinguishable from each other. But austerity has disproportionately affected young people and other groups who felt there was no one to speak for them. There are new people registering to vote all the time. Maybe they have more hope now.’
So is Alexei more hopeful, too? ‘Yes,’ he says, before pausing. ‘Maybe. More so lately. Suddenly, from nowhere, they have a genuinely left-wing leader and new voices who are vocally opposing austerity as the political ideal it is.’
‘It was never a necessity for force terminally ill people to look for jobs or to close libraries. That was a series of political decisions that didn’t really save any money any way. Now we have a leader who will speak up.’
I was never a fan of Sayle’s comedy myself, as I simply didn’t find it funny. Much of it just struck me as just abuse, without anything really deep being said. But here he’s pretty much right. The only thing I differ from him here is when he says that things have gone from extreme right to mildly left-wing. Blair was always a member of the Thatcherite extreme right. He and the rest of New Labour really did want to sell off the NHS, although I think he definitely believed in making sure that medical care was free. And he also introduced the work capability tests that have caused so many desperately ill people to be thrown off benefits, to live and die in starvation and misery. What differed about Blair is that he was genuinely anti-racist, pro-gay and anti-sexist – so long as they supported him – and was careful to sound slightly left-wing. Even when he was aiming at the same voting constituency as the Tories, using the same ministers, who had crossed the floor from the Tory party, like Chris Patten, and was taking money from the same corporate donors.
But people are waking up to how they were fooled and the country run down by the ‘moderates’ as well as the Tories and the Lib Dems. People do feel they have hope for a better future under Corbyn. As for comedy, the complaint on the right is that there are few right-wing comedians and that it’s all biased against the Tories. Which is rubbish. Buddy Hell over at Guy Debord’s Cat also wrote a blog piece complaining that the contemporary aspiring comedians he’d seen really don’t have anything funny to say. Their act simply consists of them telling the story of their life. I’m not in show business, so I have no idea why this should be so. It might simply be that the people who aspire to be comedians have been inspired by the autobiographical, observational comedy of people like Sayle, but don’t really have anything to say. It may also simply be that as the left-wing comedians of the 1980s matured and were overtaken by other comics, there was a reaction against the older generation’s political comedy. Even so, shows like The Last Leg are still managing to put a well aimed kick to the Tories. But perhaps, if more people are being inspired politically by Corbyn, this will also spur a new generation of angry left-wingers to subject the establishment to bitter scorn and derision. While showing that there can be a better world without people like Johnson, May, Cameron, Swinson and the rest of them, of course.
Those merry funsters at JOE posted this hilarious parody of Johnson over a week ago on YouTube. However, I thought it would be premature to put it up before the Court gave its decision. And given it they have! Johnson’s persuasion of the Queen to allow him to prorogue parliament is illegal, null, and of no effect. Bercow was right to condemn it, and the MPs are returning to their seats. Johnson has been attacked for this assault on Democracy by Jeremy Corbyn, Jo Swinson, Caroline Lucas and Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP. Corbyn has demanded that Johnson rethink his position and resign. And up and down the country others are demanding the same thing. This is the man, who has done nothing but try to seize power for the sake of his own massive, bloated ego and lust power. Oh yes, and the profit of his corporate donors. Who include hedge funds and venture capitalists making their money on betting that this country will be wrecked by a no-deal Brexit. This is the man, who’s made us the laughing stock of the EU. He showed a yellow streak as broad as the English Channel when he turned tail and ran away from a press conference outside in Luxembourg, because he couldn’t face being challenged by the ex-pats there. The Luxembourg Prime Minister then told the crowd exactly what the situation was, leaving Boris and his cheerleaders in the Tory press and the BBCm to lie and make up stories in order to save his face. He’s a disgrace to this country, who has brought it and the office of Prime Minister into gross disrepute, and should be thrown out at the soonest. As should his wretched party as a whole.
But I doubt he will. He’ll try to cling on whatever happens, despite this ruling. You can expect his supporters in the press to attack the judges and Gina Miller, just like the Mail called the judges, who made a ruling against Brexit ‘enemies of the people’ in an echo of the vilification the Nazis meted out to the democratic authorities in Weimar Germany. Gina Miller has already suffered gross and utter disgusting racist abuse, because she’s Guyanian. And you can be absolutely sure that the same right-wing hacks and bigots that did so will do it again.
But in the meantime, let’s have a laugh at the buffoon’s expense with this musical parody. It’s another carefully edited piece of clips of Boris and Her Maj, which make them say things that are utterly ridiculous. In this case, they sing a version of the Clash’s ‘I Fought the Law and the Law Won’.
This fortnight’s Private Eye, for 20th September – 3rd October 2019, carries an article on page 12 confirming that Project Yellowhammer includes plans to draft military personnel into the ranks of local government officials in the event of chaos following a No Deal Brexit. The article also claims that this is based on legislation, which includes the suspension of civil liberties, passed 15 years ago by New Labour. The article, titled ‘Not-So-Secret Army’ runs
The last Eye reported on Operation Yellowhammer’s contingency plans for the army to take over local government in the event of a “no deal” Brexit. In response to the article, various navy and air force officers have come forward to confirm that they too have received instructions to take over key civilian posts in local government under the Yellowhammer plans.
Furthermore, they take issue with ministers’ pretence that the leaked August document was already “out of date” and had since been updated. “Many of these documents haven’t been updated since May, or even March,” one officer says, “because we kept being told that it looked bad to be seen to be making preparations for ‘No deal’ when the government wasn’t really expecting ‘No deal’; and so we were told to stop making preparations.
The placements are being made under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, which provides for emergency transfers of power between public servants. While there has been feverish speculation among Leavers and Remainers as to what would happen if the act were ever invoked, it ignores the fact that Yellowhammer already involves triggering the act.
As was pointed out by peers and constitutional experts at the time of its passing, the legislation is severely flawed. Once triggered, it allows the government to bypass parliament and over-ride existing legislation by having “a senior Minister of the Crown” issue “temporary emergency regulations”, valid for 30-day renewable stretches. It even enables habeas corpus to be over-ridden – as well as the Bill of Rights, the succession ot the monarchy, the five-year time limit on parliaments and the checks on a prime minister’s power to appoint an unlimited number of peers. Back in 2004, these were all specific areas where Tory and Lib Dem peers tried to insert some safeguards, but without success.
Fifteen years on, Labour politicians may now be kicking themselves for having passed this legislation, which would give Boris Johnson and his inner circle such far-reaching powers after any “no deal” Brexit.
In my last piece about the Project Yellowhammer plans, I compared it to the way the Nazis seized power in Weimar Germany using legislation that provided for dictatorial rule during a state of emergency. Cooperation between the four parties that had provided democratic government during the Weimar Republic – the Social Democrats, the Catholic Centre Party and the two Liberal parties – had broken down. The Reichstag was at an impasse and the President, Hindenberg, was ruling by decree. He invited the Nazis into power to break the deadlock. They used the Reichstag fire to declare a state of emergency, and immediately seized power. In the following weeks the other parties and the trade unions were banned, Hitler declared Fuhrer, and the anti-Semitic legislation put in place. Jews, gypsies and political prisoners were rounded up and sent to the concentration camps. This further information on the legislation underpinning Yellowhammer makes the similarities even closer. Frighteningly closer.
However, if the article is trying to discredit the Labour, it doesn’t quite manage it. The Civil Contingencies Act was passed by Blair, Brown and New Labour. Who were very definitely authoritarian, as shown by Blair’s determination to silence and expel any opposition within the party. And which is shown today by the Blairites’ determination to do the same to Momentum and Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters, using fake accusations of anti-Semitism. Blair was a Thatcherite, and his policies reflected the demands of the right-wing political and industrial elite. He ignored the party’s base in favour of political donors, who were allowed to shape government policy and even staff government departments. He obeyed the City’s demands for light financial regulation, listened to the same right-wing think tanks and private healthcare companies that influenced Peter Lilley and John Major. And he was also guided by the right-wing, Tory press, particularly Murdoch’s vile rags. New Labour under Blair was another Tory party.
Blair was also anti-democratic in that he tried to pass legislation establishing secret courts, in which the normal laws of evidence did not apply if the government decided that it was for reasons of national security. The press and public were to be excluded from these trials. Defendants and their counsel need not be told, contrary to natural justice, who their accuser was or what the evidence against them was.
But Blair was not alone in trying to pass this. When they got in, the Tory-Lib Dem coalition actually did it.
And the coalition also removed the right of habeas corpus.
So much for the Tories’ and Lib Dems’ concern to preserve constitutional government and Britons’ historic civil liberties.
Since then, however, the leadership of the Labour party has changed. And Jeremy Corbyn has a very strong record of voting against the government, including Blair’s. If anyone can be trusted to block the operation of this pernicious legislation, it’s him. Despite the fact that Eye has been as bug-eyed as the rest of the press in trying to smear him as an evil Communist/ Trotskyite/ Stalinist, who will stamp his iron heel on this country’s free people. Particularly the Jews.
The truth is undoubtedly the opposite. Against this government and this plan, the only people who are going to stand up to preserve democracy is a Corbyn-led Labour party. It certainly will not be the Tories under Generalissimo Boris and their collaborators, Swinson’s Lib Dems.
Yesterday the I’s columnist, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown took it upon herself to identify the ‘guilty men’ responsible for enabling Johnson’s seizure of dictatorial power yesterday. This followed an anonymous piece by someone calling themselves ‘Cato the Younger’, with the title of ‘The Guilty Men’. ‘Cato’ blames thirteen western leaders, two of whom are women. Alibhai-Brown, however, put up her own, shorter list of six men. They are George Osborne, Nigel Farage, David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson. Now I agree with her identification of all the above as causes of the crisis, with the exception of Jeremy Corbyn. She includes him because he
has been another unknowing collaborator. He still can’t find the voice or moral clarity to oppose Brextremism, and is worryingly beholden to his close, maniacally anti-capitalist advisers. He could come out for Remain and let, say, Caroline Lucas lead a temporary government of unity. It won’t happen. Not even in our dreams.
This is utter balderdash, just Centrist, anti-Corbyn propaganda. Corbyn has made his views on Brexit very clear. He was going to get Britain the best deal he could. If he couldn’t, he would hold a general election and/or second referendum. This, however, has not been reported in the press and media, which still continues to trot out the pat lie that he never campaigned properly for Remain. Swinson, the leader of the Lib Dems, was asserting this outright lie again the other day, claiming that Corbyn was ‘nowhere to be seen’ at the Referendum campaign. He certainly was. Matt Thomas posted a tweet declaring that Corbyn made 123 media appearances, attended 15 rallies and posted 118 pro-Remain tweets. Swinson herself posted only a couple of tweets for Remain.
And Tory Fibs also tweeted
That is a provable lie. During the EU Referendum Campaign 7 May-22 June 2016, Corbyn, over 46 days, campaigned as follows:
• Traveled 5851km • Spoke at 15 rallies • Sent 100 Remain Tweets • Achieved 33,760 retweets • Received media exposure 120 times
and contrasted this with Swinson’s own lamentable performance. While Professor Andrew Russell pointed out that the Lib Dems, by contrast, were ‘conspicuous by their absence’.
As for Corbyn being ‘worryingly beholden’ to ‘maniacally anti-capitalist advisers’, this is just a bit of doubletalk trying to stir up the Red Scare about Corbyn and the Labour party a little more. One of Corbyn’s advisors is hard Left. Seumas Milne is, I believe, a real Stalinist. But Corbyn isn’t, neither is he a Trotskyite, or any other kind of Communist. And the Labour party’s programme is simply a return to the mixed-economy, strong welfare state with strong unions that gave Britain three to four decades of prosperity and economic growth after the War.
And then there’s Alibhai-Brown’s whinge that he didn’t make way for Caroline Lucas’ female-only unity government. But this was never a realistic proposal. It was profoundly sexist, and ignored the profound differences between all of the women Lucas invited to join her. It looks to me far more like an attention-grabbing stunt than a serious proposal. It also belies Alibhai-Brown’s claim to be concerned about the poor. Earlier in her article, attacking George Osborne, she states quite correctly that he
punished the neediest, weakened the welfare state and rewarded the richest. Those “left behinds” who voted for Brexit were deliberately left behind by this coldly ideology, small-state Tory.
All of which is correct. And it also describes precisely many of the women Lucas invited to join her unity government. They were also ideological Thatcherites, determined to punish the poor, reward the rich, and destroy the welfare state. And it’s remarkable that Alibhai-Brown, who has spent her journalistic career fighting racing, hasn’t pointed out that not one BAME woman was included on Lucas’ list.
Of course, the real reason Alibhai-Brown is trying to dump on Corbyn yet again, is because she shares her masters’ fears about a Corbyn government that would really empower working people and bring the profiteering super-rich to heel. And so a fair amount of the blame for BoJob’s seizure of power should go to the men and women of the Fourth Estate.
Murdoch’s papers naturally share a very large part of the blame, because they have relentless hyped and promoted the Tories and particularly Boris Johnson. So have the Torygraph, owned by the weirdo Barclay twins, while the Heil and Depress have also pushed the same extreme right-wing views.
But the nominally left-press should also shoulder their fare share of the blame. The Groaniad, Absurder and the I followed the Tory press in lying about, vilifying and smearing Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters, for exactly the same reasons as the Tory papers: they are afraid of anything that really empowers the working class. The only difference is that they have tried to dress up their Thatcherism with some shreds of progressive ideology. The I, for example, tried promoting Sandi Toksvig Women’s Equality Party. That feminist organisation’s credentials went out the window when Toksvig declared her backing for Hillary Clinton in the American presidential election. Clinton shared her husband’s attack on the American welfare state, such as it was, passed racist legislation designed to come down hardest on Blacks supposedly to tackle the ‘war on drugs’, and presided over an aggressive programme of regime change every bit as militaristic as George Bush’s. Clinton was very much a member of the American establishment, but she tried telling everyone she wasn’t, ’cause of her gender. Now we have Alibhai-Brown trying out the same tactics in promoting Lucas against Corbyn. And in doing so Alibhai-Brown shows what a hypocrite she is.
She, and the rest of the press, have also contributed to Johnson’s resistible rise. All of them have supported the neoliberal economics that have empowered the Tory Brexiteers, even when, like Swinson, they claimed otherwise. The left-wing press could have got behind Corbyn. They didn’t. And so they deserve their share of the blame, along with the Tory rags, for keeping the Tories in power, and allowing Johnson to elevate himself to virtual dictator.
God help us, he’s finally done it. BoJob has gone to the Queen to request that she suspend parliament on the 10th September, so that he can force his wretched Brexit through. It’s a move that has been denounced by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell. This is his way of avoiding moves by the Tory Remainers, Labour and the other opposition parties through legislation as contained in their pact. The Skwawkbox has posted an article arguing that BoJob’s move now presents Tory Remainers with a chance of defeating him without supporting Corbyn’s vote of no confidence. This means defeating Queen’s Speech, which will probably be on 17th October. If this happens, it means we could be facing a general election on the 5th of December.
Both the Skwawkbox and Zelo Street have pointed out that BoJob’s decision means that he was lying when he denied that he planning any such move when he spoke to the Beeb last weekend. People have been comparing Johnson’s decision to prorogue parliament to that of Charles I, who famously lost his head after losing the British Civil War. But as the Skwawkbox also pointed out, there was another parallel far closer in time. NHS doctor and campaigner Rachel Clarke tweeted that ‘We are a parliamentary democracy. This is stunt is straight out of 1930’s Germany’ and that it is ‘utterly inexcusable’.
It is. On both counts. Hitler seized power by using the Reichstag fire to declare a state of emergency. This allowed him to seize full dictatorial powers, which meant the suspension of the Reichstag, the German parliament. He then began passing legislation outlawing all competing political parties. The Skwawkbox comments that while Johnson is suspending parliament just to force through Brexit, he shares the Nazis’ contempt for democracy.
And they also put part of the blame on the ‘Centrists’, including Jo Swinson and the Lib Dems. They will no doubt wring their hands about it, but Johnson has been able to do this because they gave him the space. They could have supported Jeremy Corbyn’s no confidence vote and allowed him the chance to form a caretaker government while a general election was called. But they didn’t. Swinson was too keen to defend her Tory politics against the threat of a genuinely progressive, reforming government. Swinson has condemned BoJob’s decision, and stated that the Lib Dem’s will oppose it. But nevertheless, as the Skwawkbox says, the Lib Dems’ culpability is absolutely clear. And the Skwawkbox wonders if they will now see sense and realise just what a danger BoJob is to the fabric of our society, and join Corbyn against him.
And BoJob does present a very clear danger. Not only has he demanded the suspension of parliament, Robert Peston revealed that he had been told by a ‘No. 10 source’, that if parliament does pass a vote of no confidence, they’ll just hang on and won’t make way for another government.
Again, the actions of a dictator. In this instance, it’s General Pinochet, Maggie’s old chum. Before the Fascist butcher was finally overthrown, his fellow torturers and mass-murderers tried to oust him. They couldn’t. He just stuck there. As for the Nazi seizure of power, the parallel there is to the actions of the Catholic Centre Party. They could have voted against the Nazi machtergreifung. But they didn’t, as they were afraid Hitler would move against the Roman Catholic church. Which he did, eventually. The Centre party was banned along with all the others, and the Roman Catholic youth groups were likewise dissolved to make way for the Hitler Youth and the German Maids’ League as the sole permitted organisation for young people. You can understand and to a degree sympathise with the fear that motivated the Centre party to give in. It takes extraordinary courage to stand up to a dictator, even one that was as initially weak as Hitler. But Swinson doesn’t have that excuse. She’s allowed Johnson the political opportunity to make his odious decision simply for cynical political reasons: she’d rather have a ‘no deal’ Brexit and a completely unelected government than see Corbyn in No. 10.
The similarity between BoJob, the Tory party and Hitler and the Nazis has also not been lost on Mike. He points out the way the Nazis demonised the Jews and the sick and disabled. Just like the Tories and the Lib Dems in their coalition also demonised the sick and disabled. The Tories haven’t murdered them like the Nazis in their infamous Aktion T4, just allowed them to die as they removed the benefits they needed for support.
And he also points out that the first party the Nazis banned was the Communist. And it’s not a coincidence that the Tories have been referring to the Labour party and Jeremy Corbyn as Marxist, despite the fact that Labour is actually democratic socialist. It’s very different, and the real Communist parties, like that of the former Soviet Union, heartily despised them. Lenin and co. used the word ‘reformist’, which refers to this form of socialism, as a term of abuse.
And, as under Hitler, we have an extreme right-wing press fomenting nationalist further and promoting Johnson’s populism.
Mike goes on to quote Martin Niemoller’s poem, ‘First they came…’. He stated he paraphrased it a few years ago on his blog to insert the sick and disabled in the first line, to draw attention to the way the Tories were demonising and persecuting them. But now he believes the last line should be about democracy, and how it no longer matters whether I speak out or not, because no-one will listen.
He concludes
That is the situation we face, it seems.
You can watch it getting worse and do nothing, and then tell me I was right when it is too late to reverse this disaster.
And if this seems hysterical, just remember that during the 1970s the British security services and the Times and Mirror were considering organising a coup to overturn Harold Wilson’s government. In that event, trade unionists and left-wing activists were to be arrested and interned. See Livingstone’s book, Livingstone’s Labour.
Johnson is an authoritarian, and the Brexit party, which has announced they will support him, is even further to the right. Democracy is under threat. We need to get rid of him now!
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