Daily Mail accuses Angela Rayner of salacious behaviour in the House of Commons.

 

I can well understand that Angela Rayner feels insulted and demeaned by being likened to a piece of white working-class trash, by the Tory Daily Mail. They say she keeps opening and crossing her legs in Sharon Stone, 'Basic Instinct' style, to district priapic Boris Johnson on the front benches, in the House of Commons.

What I find less convincing, is that she says it's blatant 'classism', 'sexism', and 'misogynistic,' to have described her as a teenage single mother and a former care worker. If this is so, then why has Angela Rayner, been banging on about this, ad nauseum, for as long as I can remember?

In the ironically named, House of Commons, Angela Rayner is something of a rarity, if not a collectors item. She's one of few MPs to have come from a working class background and to have worked as a manual worker, and she should be proud of the fact. As an institution, the Palace of Westminster, is largely a racket for the middle and upper classes and hardly representative of the country at all.

The shooting of Patrick Lyoya.

 

Patrick Lyoya

The shooting of Patrick Lyoya, reminds me of the case of Walter Lamar Scott, a 50-year old black man, who was shot fives times in the back by a local police officer, Michael Slager, in North Charleston, South Carolina, in April 2015, after he stopped Scott because of a broken tail light on his car.

In both these cases, the suspects ran away but posed no direct threat to the police officer. Patrick Lyoya grabbed the taser and it was alleged that Scott had also done the same. Another similarity is that both victims were carrying passengers in their cars. Michael Slager finished up being given a twenty year prison sentence for the killing of Walter Scott.

Why Patrick Lyoya decided to do a runner, isn't clear, but I'm sure he wouldn't have liked being tasered. Walter Scott, seemingly did a runner because he thought he was about to be arrested for non payment of child maintenance, as there was an arrest warrant out on him. These sort of shootings appear routine in gun happy America. The police stop you over a suspect car registration plate or a broken tail light, and the next thing the incident escalates into you being shot dead.

Early Day Motion calls on Garrick Club to revoke ban on female members.

 

The exclusive gentleman's club, The Garrick Club, in Covent Garden, has not allowed women to join since it was founded in 1831. There have been repeated calls for the club to end its 'archaic' ban on female members. In 2015, members of the club voted 50.5% in favour of allowing female members, but a two-thirds majority, is required to change the rules.

In 2020, Emily Bendell, the founder of the lingerie label Bluebella, sent a legal letter to the Garrick Club to complain about its rules which she claimed amounted to sex discrimination, under section 29 of the Equality Act 2010. Now, a small group of MPs, including Stella Creasy, Daisy Cooper, Caroline Lucas, and John McDonnell, have jumped on the bandwagon and are supporting an early day motion calling on the Garrick to revoke its ban on female members.

Under the existing law, if you own a private club, such as a gentleman's club, you can limit membership to people who share a certain protected characteristics, if this is a requirement of club membership. This can include physical or mental disability, gender, sex, sexual orientation and ethnicity.

The early day motion, is not the first time there have been attempts to ban men-only drinking dens on the grounds of discrimination. Yet, what many find curious, is why arch-feminists, like Stella Creasy, and Emily Bendell, should find men-only clubs discriminatory and objectionable, but not women-only London clubs like, The AllBright, in Mayfair, The Wing, Grace, in Belgravia, Marguerite, and the University Women's Club. On this issue, Creasy and Bendell, show a certain aspect blindness and partiality.

If The Garrick Club was forced by law to admit women into membership, then you might find, women-only clubs would have to do the same. Likewise, it could also apply to Stella Creasy's campaign for a law making misogyny (prejudice and hatred of women), a criminal offence. Not only would this be difficult to enforce, it would open up a legal minefield and demands for a law against misandry (prejudice and hatred of men).

Tories rally to defend beleaguered Boris over "Partygate."

 

It's fascinating to see Boris and the Tories, wriggle about like a maggot on the end of a fishing hook, as they try to defend their beleaguered leader over the "Partygate" affair. The excuses become more ridiculous and embarrassing by the day. Initially, Boris denied there had been any parties, even though he attended them. Then he told us that he'd been reliably informed that all COVID rules and regulations had been complied with at all times. Now, he tells us, that although he humbly accepts the findings of the police that he broke the law, he didn't think he he'd broken the law, and had acted in good faith at all times. But as Dean Swift, famously said, where "Falsehood flies, truth comes limping after it."

We all know that ignorance of the law is no excuse. In issuing the fine, (F.P.N.), to the PM, the police are saying that there is a reasonable belief that you broke the law, that you knew you were breaking the law, or ought to have known, that you were breaking the law. Johnson was recently asked during an interview if he fully understood his own laws that he'd made for others, during the COVID epidemic, but he dodged the question. Not only does Boris Johnson not comply with his own laws, but he's the first serving Prime Minister, to have been found to have broken the law, while in office. He's also accused of lying to, and misleading Parliament. Despite his fine, and there may be others in the pipeline, Johnson says it's time to get on with the job.

Some Tory MPs in Parliament, who previously called for Johnson's resignation, have now changed tack, insisting that because of the war in the Ukraine, Johnson should not resign. Although British people were unable to attend funerals or visit loved ones during the lockdown restrictions, the Brexit minister, Jacob Reese-Mogg, even described "Partygate" as "fluff" and "fundamentally trivial", a mere distraction. Other have compared Boris's fine for breaching Covid lockdown restrictions, to a minor traffic violation. It looks like Vlad the Impaler, might have thrown Boris Johnson another lifeline with his invasion of the Ukraine. As Shakespeare says, "Busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels."

The Zong Massacre 1781

 

The Zong Massacre

The Zong massacre is a reminder of the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade.

On 29 November 1781, the crew of the English slave ship the 'Zong', sailing to Jamaica, began to throw its cargo of African slaves overboard because of a lack of drinkable water. The slave ship was owned by a group of Liverpool merchants. Some 132 slaves were eventually thrown overboard over a period of two days, and left to drown. The ship owners argued that this became necessary so that others could survive, but another reason, was that it allowed them to cash in on their insurance policy.

The insurers refused to pay out and this led to a legal action and court cases. As the slaves were classed as cargo, and not human beings, the case was not about mass murder. The courts had ruled that the killing of slaves was legal in some cases. The ship had been carrying 442 African slaves which was twice the number the ship was capable of safely transporting. It was discovered that the ship had also sailed 300 miles past its destination of Jamaica. Initially, the Zong massacre had little impact in Britain, but some years later, it became an example of the horrors of slavery and became a catalyst for the abolitionist movement.

I certainly didn't learn about this horrific case from attending an history class at an English state school. Like many white people of my generation, who went to school in the 1950s and 6Os, I was educated as a little imperialist. I first heard about the Zong massacre from watching the 2013 film called 'Belle', which was inspired by the painting of Dido Elizabeth Belle, who was the mixed-race daughter of the nephew of William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, and Lord Chief Justice of England. Lord Mansfield ruled on this case in England's Court of King's Bench in 1786.

B.F Skinner - "We Can't Afford Freedom."

 

The psychologist B.F. Skinner (1904-90), who is associated with the theory of 'Behaviorism', is not a person that I particularly care for. Nevertheless, his theories of human behaviour have been extremely influential in the field of psychology. He believed that 'free will' was an illusion and that all human behaviour was determined by our environment and could be conditioned, controlled, and manipulated, by a system of rewards and punishments. One of his favourite experimental animals, was the pigeon, which he placed in the "Skinner box." He even taught pigeons how to play ping-pong. His utopian novel called 'Walden Two', published in 1948, describes a fictional utopian society in which people are trained to become ideal citizens through the use of 'operant conditioning'. 

The book derives its title from Henry David Thoreau's book also called 'Walden', which espoused the virtues of self reliance at the individual level. Members of Skinner's fictional utopian society, believe that they are exercising free will, but in reality, they are part of a dystopian psychological experiment that is controlling their behaviour. Skinner believed in the rule of the expert - 'technocratic rule'. He wrote: " We must delegate control of the population as a whole to specialists - to police, priests, teacher's, therapists, and so on, with their specialized reinforcers and their codified contingencies." I'm sure many authoritarians would welcome this. Many governments are already using 'Nudge theory', as a means to drive behavioural change in individuals and groups.

In later life, Skinner published books suggesting that society's emphasis on autonomy and individual freedom, were the source of many of its ills. He argued that a more scientific approach to society could eliminate war, crime, punishment, and other forms of social strife. Skinner's critics, argued that his approach dehumanized people by neglecting their personal freedom by seeking to control their actions. In the 1970s, Skinner was hanged in effigy outside the Psychology Department at Indiana University with these words attached to the effigy - "BF SKINNER, WE CAN'T AFFORD FREEDOM."

Radical psychologist, Thomas Szasz, who reviewed Skinner's book 'On Behaviorism' which was published in 1974, wrote: "I believe that those who rob people of the meaning and significance they have given to their lives, kill them, and should be considered murders, at least metaphorically. B.F. Skinner is such a murderer. Like all such murderers he fascinates, especially his victims."

Johnson accused of blaming junior officials for "Partygate".

 

Putin's invasion of the Ukraine effectively threw a lifeline to Johnson, but now that media interest in the war is waning, the press have put the spotlight back on Boris Johnson and the police investigation into 'Partygate'.

The Metropolitan Police are investigating 12 events during 2020 and 2021, where it is thought that lockdown rules were broken. The British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, is known to have attended six of these events. Some of these parties took place at 10 Downing Street.

The police have issued 20 fixed penalty notices to people who attended these events, including officials working in Downing Street. Previously, the Prime Minister, told Parliament that "all guidance was followed completely in No 10." Although the police have been issuing fines to those who are believed to have broken the law, it's astonishing that Johnson, still refuses to accept that the law has been broken. Nor will he confirm that he will resign, if he's found to have broken the law.

The Met have been accused of focusing their attentions on "low hanging fruit" - junior officials. A former senior aide to the Prime Minister, Dominic Cummings, has now accused Boris Johnson of encouraging attacks on junior officials in order to protect himself and his wife Carrie. He says senior officials have "turned a blind eye" to his behaviour. In a recent blog, Cummings wrote: "It is deeply, deeply contemptible that not just the PM but senior civil servants have allowed such people to have their reputations attacked in order to protect the sociopathic narcissist squatting in the No 10 flat."

If the Prime Minister or his wife are not fined for breaching lockdown restrictions, when others in their charmed circle have been, critics are likely to say that the police investigation looks bent, and that there is one law for powerful figures like Boris Johnson, and another law, for the rest of us. During lockdown restrictions, the police issued thousands of fines to those they believed broke the law. The crux of the matter is whether Johnson broke the law, and then lied or misled Parliament, and if his position as Prime Minister is now untenable. The "sociopathic narcissist', seems to be hanging on by the skin of his teeth.

Union say that P&O have got away with it. Seafarer's throw the towel in!

 

The sacking of 786 crew members working for P&O Ferries, who've been replaced by cheaper agency worker's, shows how easy it is for bosses to get rid of British worker's. The UK has one of the least regulated labour markets in the developed world and some of the strictest anti-union laws.

It seems astonishing, that despite Britain's lack of employment protection, the RMT union urged its members to vote to leave the E.U. in the Brexit referendum in 2016. They naively asserted that leaving the E.U. would end the attack on seafarer's and offshore worker's, and the attack on worker's rights. The TUC, said that British worker's were better off in the E.U.

In Brexit Britain, we saw P&O crew members sacked without notice and ignominiously marched off the ships, by security guards wearing balaclavas and carrying handcuffs. They were then replaced by cheaper agency worker's, who according to the RMT union, were being paid as little as £1.80 an hour. Peter Hebblewaite, the chief executive of P&O Ferries, admitted to deliberately flouting British employment law, but said he would do so again, under similar circumstances.

The union's representing the sacked seafarer's, the RMT and Nautilus, are now saying that P&O have gotten away with it. Seemingly, all but one of the sacked P&O ferry worker's, have accepted redundancy packages, which include gagging clauses and which prohibit, the seafarer's from taking further action.

Despite all the grandstanding and fine words and condemnations by the government, their threats against P&O have come to nought. Although the Tory PM, Boris Johnson, told Parliament they would take P&O to court to defend the rights of British worker's, the Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps, admitted: "The government are not in a position to take further action." Shapps said it was for the Insolvency Service to consider whether to disqualify Peter Hebblewaite, and government plans to get British ports to enforce the minimum wage against ferry operators, have been described as 'unworkable'.

Despite the shabby treatment of British seafarer's, the owners of P&O Ferries, the Dubai-based DP World, who recently announced record profits of £751m, now stand to benefit from around £50m of tax breaks, by playing a leading role in free ports at London Gateway, and Southampton. Ministers have ignored calls from MPs, to exclude DP World, from running UK free ports.

Although P&O sacked almost a quarter of its British staff, regional media in France - where it's more difficult to sack worker's, and where worker's are more militant, and more politically savvy, - said that no French employees had been affected. The RMT vowed to continue the fight, but said that P&O seafarer's had a gun at their heads, and could have lost all their redundancy pay. Louise Haigh, Labour's Shadow Transport Secretary, said that if P&O were seen to have escaped without consequences, "it would give a green light to bad bosses across the country."