Euna Blair's 'Multiverse' reports near-tripling of losses.

 

Euan Blair

Euan Blair's apprenticeship firm 'Multiverse' sounds like the South Sea Bubble of 1720. It's a good example of what can happen when people succumb to group think and speculative bubbles and Ponzi schemes. 

Despite the company failing to return a profit for the last seven years, it was awarded the coveted tech "unicorn" status when it was valued at £1.4bn fundraising round driven by U.S. venture capital firms in June 2022. That put Blair's stake in the company at £420m.

Blair recently bought a seven-bedroom house in London for £22m. He was able to make the purchase after venture capitalist investors, allowed him to sell £320m-worth of shares to buy a home. 

Some people might wonder why a company that hasn't returned a profit in the last seven years is valued so high? How did Tony Blair's son manage to get the backing of some of the wealthiest people in America, like the Walton family? It has surely got something to do with his influential father and the prospects of expansion in U.S. markets.

Dublin City Council flies the Palestinian flag.

 

Dublin City Council have agreed to fly the Palestinian flag in solidarity with the people of Gaza.

Before she was sacked as Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, said that flying the Palestinian flag in the UK "may not be legitimate' if it's deemed to show support for acts of terrorism.

Although the Israeli government have been accused of indiscriminate bombing in Gaza, genocide, and ethnic cleansing, which has resulted in the deaths of over 15,5000 innocent civilians since 7 October, including thousands of women and children, Sir Kier Starmer-oid suggested that the Israeli flag be flown above Wembley arch when England played Australia in a friendly match in October. He also defended Israel's right to cut off water and food supplies to two million people in Gaza, almost half of whom, are children. The Football Association (FA), announced that the Wembley Stadium arch would not be lit in the colours of the Israeli flag but players would wear black armbands and there would be a period of silence held before the kick off.

When Celtic played Atletico Madrid in November, the stadium was transformed into a sea of Palestinian flags, as 60,000 Celtic fans showed their solidarity with the people of Gaza under Israeli assault. The main flag bearers were the "Green Brigades", an 'ultras' group renowned for their Irish Republicanism and unflinching support for the Palestinian cause.

Liverpool Council gag Jewish Palestinian activist.

 

Helen Marks

Helen Marks, a Jewish resident in Liverpool, and secretary of Liverpool Friends of Palestine, was originally granted a three- minute speaking slot to address Liverpool council, to urge the council to call for an immediate ceasefire and peace deal in Gaza in order to find a solution to the endless cycle of violence in the region.

Following a relentless bombing campaign by the Israeli's who have bombed homes, hospitals, and schools, some 15,000 people have been killed, including over 5,500 children. After being given permission to speak, Helen Marks was asked to submit her speech to the council who then wrote to tell her that she wouldn't be able to address the council.

Daniel Fenwick, the council's City Solicitor, told her that her speech would breach the IHRA definition of antisemitism which had been adopted by Liverpool council in January 2018. Fenwick also told her that while it was legitimate freedom of expression to criticize the Israeli government's policies and actions in Gaza, her statement was likely to be offensive to the Jewish community and "others in the city and beyond." She was also told that her statement which referred to the dehumanising of the Palestinian people by the Israeli's and Amnesty International's description of Israel as an "Apartheid state", would not foster good relations between Jews, Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims.

Although Liverpool council have adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism, the definition is not legally binding and has no basis in English law, even though the British Conservative government have adopted it and the Labour Party. The prominent human rights lawyer, Hugh Tomlinson QC, gave a legal opinion on the IHRA definition of antisemitism to a group of NGO's. He said: "The IHRA definition is unclear and confusing (it could be suggested, in fact, that it is calculatedly misleading), that the government's adoption of it has no legal status, and that the overriding legal duty of public authorities is to preserve freedom of expression..."

Stephen Sedley, a former Court of Appeal judge, has said that the IHRA definition of antisemitism fails the test of any definition because it is indefinite and that policy is not law, but is required to operate within the law. The 1998 Human Rights Act, makes it unlawful for a public authority to act incompatibly with rights that include the right to freedom of expression under article 10 of the European Convention. The right is not absolute or unqualified and it can be restricted where it is lawful to do so, proportionate, and necessary, in the interest of public safety, the prevention of disorder, or the protection of the rights of others. However, as Stephen Sedley points out, "These qualifications do not include a right not to be offended."

Some people might wonder why an intergovernmental body called the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) needed to adopt a "non-legally-binding working definition of antisemitism" in May 2016, when most people understand antisemitism to be hostility to Jews as Jews.

Geoffrey Robertson QC, of Doughty Street Chambers, has said that the IHRA definition of antisemitism is not fit for purpose and is liable to deter "legitimate criticism of the state of Israel and coverage of human rights abuses against Palestinians." Many believe that its sole purpose. In practice, this is exactly what has occurred because people who have adopted the IHRA definition are conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism and defer to the eleven "contemporary examples of antisemitism" that are attached to the definition.

This is acknowledged by Kenneth Stern, who drafted the IHRA definition. Stern has said that he drafted the IHRA definition of antisemitism but it's right wing Jews who have weaponized it to chill and suppress free speech and legitimate criticism of Israel. Helen Marks, is just one of many to have had her right to freedom of expression curtailed by a definition of antisemitism that has no legal basis in English law.

At Saint Andrews University in Scotland, the rector, Stella Maris, has come under fire from the Israeli lobby for sending out an email recognising Israel as an apartheid regime and accusing the Israelis of waging genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.

Ms Marks says that Liverpool council’s maneuvers were "feeble but predictable" and that she has sent her statement to all Liverpool's councillors.

Tommy Robinson arrested on march against anti-Semitism!

 

Tommy Robinson Under Arrest

Among the lesser celebrities who turned up to support Sundays march against anti-Semitism, was the far-right anti-Muslim activist, Stephen Yaxley Lennon (40), better known as Tommy Robinson, founder of the English Defence League (EDL). Although Robinson is a self-declared "Zionist" and a supporter of the Zionist nationalist state of Israel who boasts of his love for the country, his presence on the march, seems to have caused some embarrassment. It seems he was arrested by officers of the Met when he refused to comply with a direction to disperse under Section 35 of the Antisocial Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act. The police told Robinson, that this continued presence in the area was likely to cause harassment, alarm and distress to others. He was directed to leave the area but refused to do so and was arrested and escorted away by the police.

Robinson has a lengthy criminal record which includes convictions for violence, contempt of court, drug possession, stalking and mortgage and immigration fraud. A former member of the neo-fascist and white nationalist British National Party (BNP), he has served at least four separate terms of imprisonment. Robinson was also a political advisor to the former UKIP leader, Gerrard Batten. In 2019, the news channel Al-Jazeera, reported that both Robinson and the far-right Dutch racist Geert Wilders, received money from the pro-Israel think tank, the Middle East Forum, to offset their legal costs after they were charged with incitement of hate against Muslims.

Although the leaders of Sunday's march said they wanted nothing to do with the former BNP member, Robinson has been invited on sponsored trips to Israel where he visited illegal Israeli settlements and was even pictured, carrying a rifle while standing on an Israeli army tank in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights. In 2017, Tommy Robinson met with members of Manchester's Jewish community at a secret gathering in Prestwich. According to the Jewish Chronicle, one community member said her friends had organised the meet-up but she would "take legal action" if her own name was linked to the event. The 'meet-up' was acknowledged by Robinson on Twitter. It's believed that he addressed around dozen people at the meeting in Prestwich where he outlined his extremist views on Islam. Other Jewish organisations in Britain condemned the meeting.

Tommy Robinson is not the only far-right leader to have received a warm welcome in Israel. In 2018, the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, visited Israel and was described by the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has a "True Friend of Israel." The visit proved controversial with some Israeli protestors accusing the Hungarian leader of fanning the flames of anti-Semitism in his home country. The President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, also received a warm welcome from Netanyahu when he made a four-day visit in 2018. His visit to the country also proved controversial after he compared his anti-drug campaign to the Holocaust. In a rambling speech Duterte had said: "Hitler massacred three million Jews, now, there is three million drug addicts. I'd be happy to slaughter them." Clearly, some people can be anti-Semites while still admiring Israel as a tough, militaristic, nationalist, apartheid state.

One-in-seven adults in England advised to go private by NHS.

 

The Conservative Party and the doctor’s union the British Medical Association (BMA), were initially opposed to the introduction of the NHS in 1948. The BMA opposed it because they thought doctors would lose money. You might say that they put their own backyard before the fate of the nation.

Aneurin Bevan, the Labour Minister for Health, was asked how he'd persuaded the doctors to accept the NHS and he replied: " I stuffed their mouths with gold." What Bevan meant, was that British doctors or consultants, could continue to see private paying patients if they accepted NHS patients.

The Conservatives opposed the NHS because they believed it would lead to a full-time salaried service for doctors which was a threat to the patient-doctor relationship and they believed, it would also wreck the voluntary hospital system. They were also incensed that Bevan had abandoned their 'Willink plan' for health reform as unworkable. The Conservative health minister, Henry Willink, had produced a White Paper in 1944, entitled, ‘A National Health Service’. However, under the Willink proposals, it was accepted that no doctor or patient would be forced to join the new service and it was assumed that private practice, would continue on a substantial scale.

Bevan wanted the full nationalisation of hospitals and socialised health care that was free of charge. The Conservatives voted consistently against Bevan's NHS Bill. From day one, Bevan included dental, ophthalmic, and hearing services within the NHS. Prescriptions were also free. Mental and physical health services were also integrated. The Bill had plainly stated that it was the duty of the Minister of Health to provide a comprehensive health service to improve the physical and mental health of the people free of charge. That responsibility was removed when the Conservative-led coalition government introduced the 2012 Health and Social Care Act.

For some years now, successive British governments have presided over the managed decline of the NHS, culminating in staff shortages, lower funding, growing waiting lists, and delays in patients accessing health care. This is a political decision. Patients are going private because of delays in accessing health care and growing waiting lists for hospital surgery, which is creating a two tier health service. Some people are crowdfunding to pay for health treatment or going abroad. Some NHS hospitals and medical staff are actively encouraging people to go private so they can jump the queue and get prioritised. The Observer newspaper says that one in seven adults in England have been advised by the NHS to go private.

The Daily Telegraph reported in August 2023, that GP pay had risen by 20% in the past three years despite GP's seeing a third fewer patients face-to-face. According to published data, GP's earned an average of £118,000 in 2021-22, up from £98,000, in 2018-19, before the pandemic.

Since the COVID lockdown in March 2020, many GP practices removed walk-in surgeries and never reinstated them. They replaced this with triage. Despite NHS England issuing guidance to practices in 2021 which says GP patients must now be offered face-to-face appointments if that is their preference, many GP's are still reluctant to see patients face-to-face and are resorting to phone and video consultations. This has led to increased pressure on emergency departments and A&E services. Unlike, molly-coddled and over-paid British GP's, hospital doctors and nurses have to deal with patients face-to-face, they have little choice in the matter.

Covid inquiry told Sunak was known as "Dr Death the Chancellor".

 

Matt Hancock - "Congenitally Untrustworthy"

Although Boris Johnson broke every rule in the rule book that his government introduced during the COVID lockdown, the COVID inquiry has been told that he wanted to impose massive fines on the general public if they broke lockdown rules.

For dozy Boris, it was a case of don't do as we do, but do as we say. At 10 Downing Street, there was 'Wine-time Friday's between 4pm and 7pm every week for as many as up to 50 people. In May 2020, some 100 people were invited to a "bring your own booze" garden party at Downing Street. There were farewell gatherings and birthday parties in Downing Street and even a 'secret Santa' Christmas quiz. In April 2021, two parties were held by Downing Street staff, the night before Prince Philip's funeral.

The social gatherings in Downing Street became known as 'Partygate'. Johnson told the House of Commons that he'd been reliably informed that all rules and guidance on COVID, had been followed at all times within Downing Street. He repeatedly denied that he'd intentionally or recklessly misled Parliament. He was later fined £50 by the police for attending a birthday party in Downing Street that broke COVID lockdown rules. Carrie Johnson and Rishi Sunak were also fined £50 for attending the same party.

In June 2023, the House of Commons Privilege Committee, found that Johnson had "deliberately misled MP's" on following COVID guidelines. He then resigned as an MP rather than face a 90-day suspension. The disgraced former Prime Minister, was also banned from entering the House of Commons.

During the COVID inquiry, the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has been disparagingly referred to as "Dr Death the Chancellor" for his "eat out to help out scheme" which studies have suggested, might have been responsible for up to a sixth of new infection clusters during the summer of 2020.

Mat Hancock, the former Health Minister, has come under attack for being dishonest, incompetent and more interested in self-promotion than tackling the spread of coronavirus. He was described at the inquiry, as "congenitally untrustworthy." In a WhatsApp message, the former cabinet secretary, Mark Sedwill, told Boris Johnson to sack the "lying" health secretary to "save lives and protect the NHS."

The Guardian newspaper wrote: "Boris Johnson has been portrayed during the inquiry as a borderline-sentient hologram of a leader who failed to grasp basic science and would adopt the view of whoever he last spoke to."

I've often thought that if Boris Johnson resembles any historical figure in British politics, it has got to be the corrupt Edwardian fraudster, Horatio Bottomley. A member of Parliament, he was also the editor of a populist magazine called 'John Bull'. It's said of Bottomley, that he had the ability to charm the public even while swindling them. He also had many mistresses. In 1922, Bottomley was convicted of fraud and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. He finished up sewing mailbags in Wormwood Scrubs.

 

Supreme Court rules Rwanda scheme unlawful.

 

Suella Braverman 

Suella Braverman's dream of sending aeroplane loads of immigrants on a one way trip to Rwanda, now lies in tatters after the Supreme Court ruled the British government's Rwanda policy unlawful yesterday.

The proposal to deport migrants who arrive illegally into the UK, some 4,000 miles to Rwanda, in east Africa, was first announced by Boris Johnson in April 2022. The policy was meant to deter people from crossing the English Channel in small boats or in the back of lorries, but it hasn't deterred. The British government said that anyone who entered the UK illegally after 1 January 2022, could be sent to Rwanda with no limit on numbers. The government said that when in Rwanda, their asylum claims would be assessed and if successful they could remain in Rwanda or apply for asylum in another country, but not Britain. If they were unsuccessful, they would be returned to the country of their origin from which they had fled.

While some migrants such as unaccompanied asylum seeking children, asylum seekers from Rwanda, the disabled, pregnant women, and those with sexual issues, are exempt, those eligible for a one way trip to Rwanda are migrants who had failed to claim asylum in the first safe country they have entered and those deemed to have tried to enter the UK by dangerous means. Migrants from Rwanda are exempt because the British government doesn't consider it a safe country in which to return them but nevertheless, considers Rwanda a safe country for other refugees. However, the government's main target turned out to be young single men.

Some critics immediately denounced the Rwanda plan has unlawful, unworkable, and a political stunt by the Tory government. The Rwanda scheme has already cost the British taxpayer £140 million and yet not one migrant has been deported to Rwanda.

For the last 18 months, the British government have been embroiled in costly legal actions that seek to challenge the legality of the plan under international law. In June 2022, the first flight to Rwanda was halted after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) examined the case of a 54-year-old Iraqi asylum seeker who crossed the Channel in a boat. The ECHR said they were granting an interim measure and told the British government that the applicant should not be removed to Rwanda until three weeks after the delivery of the final domestic decision on his ongoing judicial review. Although the ECHR didn't rule on whether the policy or relocations were unlawful, the interim measure was issued because it was felt there was an "imminent risk of irreparable harm" to the Iraqi national who is believed to have suffered torture. It also opened the door to other legal challenges. 

In December 2022, the High Court ruled that the government's plan to deport migrants to Rwanda was lawful in principle. However, the court didn't make a determination on whether Rwanda was a safe country to deport migrants to. It simply considered whether the Home Secretary had made a lawful decision.

By a majority decision the Court of Appeal, found that there was a real risk of asylum claims receiving inadequate consideration in Rwanda and a consequent risk of claims being refused and asylum seekers with valid claims being returned to their country of origin where they might suffer persecution, which is known as 'refoulement', which breaches the ECHR and the Refugee Convention. The court also ruled that Rwanda is not a "safe third country." The British government appealed against this decision.

The Supreme Court ruled that Rwanda is not a safe country and that it would be unlawful for refugees to be removed there. The court declared that Rwanda is widely acknowledged to have a poor human rights record and is in breach of numerous treaty commitments it has made. It noted that the courts in Rwanda don't act as an effective check on government behaviour and there is no real judicial independence. The Supreme Court said that Rwanda had breached the terms of a previous asylum deal it had entered into with Israel.

Although Rishi Sunak has said that his Conservative government will press ahead with the Rwanda plan in spite of the Supreme Court ruling, and have said that Britain might leave the ECHR, no-one credible, thinks the Rwanda plan is practical or that it deters significant numbers of refugees. What are the likely costs of detaining tens of thousands of refugees in detention camps and then flying them to Rwanda? The Home Office say it costs £169,000 to send one asylum seeker to Rwanda. The chartered Boeing 767 Rwanda asylum flight that had to be cancelled in June 2022 because of a legal challenge, cost an estimated £500,000.  In 2022, the British government managed to remove around 500 failed asylum seekers. And how many refugees can Rwanda really take? In reality, the Rwanda scheme, is likely to apply to probably a few hundred individuals.

Most countries recognise that something has to be done about the issue of refugees and asylum seekers, but the British government's policy of deterrence, isn't really working. The country needs to speed up the process of dealing with the backlog of asylum claims and ensure that the process is quicker and less complex.

While Suella Braverman talked about England being invaded by asylum seekers, the UK actually receives far fewer refugees than other countries in Europe or elsewhere. The Supreme Court judgement will prevent the UK government from lawfully removing anyone to Rwanda based on the evidence as it currently stands.

Suella Braverman SACKED.

 

Minister for Hate Suella Braverman

Sue-Ellen Cassiana Braverman, who has just been sacked as Home Secretary, is not exactly reliable when it comes down to telling the truth. She's was no stranger to embellishing the truth when she wanted to make the headlines. As the Home Secretary, she often made public statements that were at odds or were even contradicted by evidence held by the Home Office and were inaccurate and baseless.

Two examples come to mind - bogus asylum seekers and the ethnicity of grooming gangs. In December 2022, Braverman backed the assertion made by her predecessor former Home Secretary Priti Patel, that "70% of individuals on small boats are single men who are effectively economic migrants." In December 2021, Braverman told MPs, "There is considerable evidence that people are coming here as economic migrants, illegally."

When the Home Office was asked for the evidence to support the claim made by former Home Secretary Priti Patel that the majority of those who are trying to reach the UK are so-called "economic migrants", they couldn't provide it. The Home Office said: "We have carried out a thorough search and we have established that the Home Office does not hold the information requested." However, the "Home Office's own data did confirm that most of the people who reached the UK by small boat in 2022 - at least six in ten (60%) - would be recognised as refugees." This is because many of them are fleeing war, persecution, trafficking, violence and torture, and qualify as asylum seekers.

The fact that refugee’s/asylum seekers try to cross the English Channel in small boats is because the British government have closed or severely restricted safest routes to the UK. This makes room for traffickers.

According to government figures around 70 to 75% of those claiming asylum in the UK, are successful, with another 25% of claims being rejected. Many of these rejected claims are won on appeal. Although the Home Office failed to provide any evidence to support the claims made by Braverman and Patel that the majority of those refugees trying to reach the UK are "economic migrants", the statements made by both Home Secretary's, were never corrected or retracted. Both Patel and Braverman deliberately gave the public misleading figures on refugees and boat people to gain a political advantage and to pander to the base instincts of some English voters, who fear being swamped by illegal immigrants or dislike foreigners.

Though Braverman and Patel have vilified and demonised refugees, both their parents are of Indian origin and came to this country as immigrants from East Africa.  Braverman's father, Christie Fernandes, who was born in Nairobi, left Kenya in the late 1960s along with many other Asians, when restrictions were placed on them by Jomo Kenyatta, the leader of the newly independent Kenya. There was political turmoil in Kenya and a policy of "Africanisation." Fernandes was offered a British passport and left the country. Ugandan Asians were expelled by Idi Amin.

Braverman's mother, Uma, was recruited from Mauritius to work in the NHS. As the Tory Health Minister during 1960 to 1963, Enoch Powell, famous for his rivers of blood speech, recruited many nurses from abroad to work within the NHS and many were from the West Indies.

Before being sacked as Home Secretary, Braverman falsely claimed that child grooming gangs in the UK were "almost all British-Pakistani." The press regulator, Ipso, found that her decision to link "the identified ethnic group and a particular form of offending was significantly misleading" because the Home Office's own research had concluded that offenders were mainly from white backgrounds. Four days after publishing the article, the Mail on Sunday, who published the article, offered to amend the article to make clear that the claim related specifically to high profile grooming gangs. The wording was rejected by the complainant who took the case to Ipso. The Mail on Sunday also said that before publishing the article they had double checked with advisers to the Home Secretary and the prime minister about Braverman's decision to single out British Pakistanis, who confirmed they had "no concern with this particular line."

Since her sacking, Braverman, has been denounced as the most divisive British Home Secretary in history and dubbed the 'Minster for Hate' and Cruella Braverman. A Buddhist with a Jewish husband, she was a divisive and authoritarian figure who sowed racial division and unrest and inflamed racial tensions in this country which played into the hands of the far right. Her language was inflammatory and dangerous. This daughter of immigrants said she dreamt of seeing immigrants deported to Rwanda and believed that rough sleeping was a lifestyle choice. She denounced the pro-Palestinian marches has "hate marches" and called on the Met to ban them entirely.

It seems some protestors were carrying placards depicting Braverman and Sunak has "coconuts", and there have been press reports that the Met are now treating this has a possible "hate crime." This analogy is often used as a derogatory term for a black or Asian person who is perceived to conform to "white culture", at the expense of his or her own ancestral culture. The term "Uncle Tom" syndrome, is also used. Braverman's husband, Rael Braverman, who has lived in Israel and some sources say was born in South Africa, describes himself as a "proud Jew and Zionist." He works for the Mercedes -Benz Group as a manager.

What’s a Terrorist?

 What’s a Terrorist? By Les May

The only definition which makes sense to me is that it is someone who uses violence, or the threat of violence against the civilian population to achieve a political goal. If we accept that definition then it is legitimate to refer to Hamas as a ‘Terrorist Organisation’ when it kills or kidnaps Israeli civilians as it did on 7 October 2023.

You may prefer to call the military wing of Hamas ‘Freedom Fighters’, but bear with me a moment because the definition above has some interesting consequences.

AlJazeera English Service on Freeview channel 235 is the ONLY TV news channel with reporters in Gaza. What it has broadcast for the past month is the visual evidence of repeated attacks by the Israeli military on the civilian population of Gaza in pursuit of a political goal. Israel fits the definition of being a ‘Terrorist State’.

Protestor showers Starmeroid with glitter.

 

The Labour Party leader, Sir Kier Starmeroid, literally shit himself when a protestor rushed on the stage at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool and sprinkled him with glitter. For some considerable time now, critics have said that Starmeroid is badly in need of some sparkle.

Watching this made my day. I was immediately reminded of what the writer, Christopher Hitchens, once said about the American pastor Jerry Falwell. "If they gave Jerry Falwell an enema, you could bury what's left of him in a matchbox." The same could be said of Sir Kier Starmeroid, he's so full of shit. 

George Orwell's invisible wife.

 

I've just finished reading the book 'Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life' by Anna Funder. This book contains some useful information about both Orwell and Eileen Blair but it's written from a feminist perspective.

Anna Funder observes that throughout his life Eric Blair relied on women to help him out and they did so. They brought him up, provided financial help and accommodation, and provided contacts to literary agents and publishers. However, Funder argues that Eric Blair treated women badly, including his wife Eileen, who was little more than skivvy for him.

Although Orwell, gave instructions that he didn't want biographies to be written about him, there have been a number of biographies written about him since his death in January 1950. Funder quite rightly points out that many of the biographer’s erase and obscure facts about the women in George Orwell's life and Orwell does the same.

In Homage to Catalonia, Orwell's refers to his 'wife' but he doesn't say anything about her or what she was doing in Spain. Anna Funder says: "I had read Homage twice and never registered that Eileen was in Spain. No one I ever asked remembers her. How can you read a book and have no memory that a person was not in a place alone, but with their spouse? Orwell seems to have written her out of the story himself."

What Eileen Blair made of being erased and forgotten and plunged down the memory hole, we will never know, because she's not here to tell us and nor is it mentioned in her letters. Funder says of Eileen, “At no point in her life does Eileen seem to have felt she deserved more than she got.” She adds, “Wifedom is a wicked trick we have learned to play ourselves.”

When Orwell got shot through the neck on the Aragon front, one of the stretcher bearers reported Orwell saying, "Please tell Eileen that I love her", but this isn't mentioned in Homage to Catalonia. It might well be that this omission, simply reflects English stoicism and a hesitance to display feeling. Yet, Orwell's publisher Fred Warburg, said: "He (Orwell), was as secretive about his private life as any man that I ever knew."

People who knew Eileen Blair describe her as 'sophisticated', 'fastidious', 'highly intelligent', and 'intellectual'. Apparently, she didn't suffer fools and didn't spare anyone. By all accounts, she could give you a good tongue lashing. Neither Eric or Eileen were in good health but it didn't stop him from pursuing other women. Orwell hardly ever told anyone that he had TB.

Funder seems obsessed with Orwell's sex life or lack of it. While we're told about Orwell's extra marital relationships, his frequenting of brothels in Paris, Burma, and Morocco, and attempted sexual assaults that Orwell allegedly made on a number of women, Funder also thinks that he might have been a repressed homosexual. She writes: "Numerous friends of Orwell thought his virulent homophobia odd. No biographer deals plainly with the possibility of Orwell's homosexuality."

Funder thinks that Orwell possibly inhabited a world where "desire and disgust mingle." Personally, the best of the book are the sections on Burma and Spain. Orwell served as a colonial policeman in Burma and grew to despise the British Empire and British colonialism. His first novel was called ‘Burmese Days’ and he wrote: “You see louts fresh from school kicking grey-haired servants.” Orwell admitted to kicking his own servant, a houseboy, who he’d taught to wake him by tickling his feet. Funder says that when the governor’s wife in Burma campaigned for British men to marry their concubines or stop sleeping with them, the response was “no cunt no oil.”

As both Eileen and George Orwell were working with the Marxist POUM, they were constantly spied on by Communist agents who had infiltrated the POUM and their lives. English men like David Wickes and David Crook, who were reporting to Alexander Orlov, Stalin's man in Spain, who was quietly compiling a kill list. Both Eileen and Orwell had to get out of Spain in a hurry to avoid being liquidated by Stalin's goons. 

How Israel went from helping to create Hamas to bombing it!

 

Hamas

I recently watched an appalling BBC interview with the Israeli journalist and author, Ronen Bergman, of the New York Times. He called the Hamas attack on Israel an "intelligence failure" and claimed that Israel was caught by surprise.

Yet, we've heard reports that Egypt told the Israeli's of an imminent attack on Israel days before it happened. I first heard of this on BBC 2 Newsnight. The Israeli government spokesman being interviewed denied this.

The Texas Republican Congressman and former attorney, Michael McCaul, who heads the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, told the press that he'd been told at a "closed door" intelligence briefing, that Israel had been forewarned of an attack. Yet none of this was put to Bergman.

Israel initially supported Hamas because they saw the Islamic fundamentalist as a useful tool against the more secular Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). This isn’t some ridiculous conspiracy theory but perfectly true.

Brig. Gen, Yitzhak Segev, who was the Israeli military governor in Gaza in the early 1980s, told a New York Times reporter that he’d helped to finance the Palestinian Islamist movement as a ‘counterweight’ to the secularists and leftist Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Fatah party, led by Yasser Arafat. The PLO leader had referred to Hamas as “a creature of Israel.” The retired brigadier general confessed: “The Israeli government gave me a budget”, and the “military government gives to the mosques.”

In 2009, Avnar Cohen, a former religious affairs official who worked in Gaza for for twenty years, told the Wall Street journal: “Hamas, to my regret, is Israel’s creation.”

If what Congressman Michael McCaul says is true, why didn't the Israeli government act to thwart the attack by Hamas?

Starmer says Israel has the right to cut off water and energy to Gaza.

 

Keir Starmer - "A Zionist without qualification."

The Labour Party is led by a man who has said, "I'm a Zionist without qualification."

Although the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has declared Israel to be "The nation-state of the Jewish people, and the Jewish people alone", and is "not a state of all its citizens", Keir Starmer, refutes the charge made by Amnesty International that Israel is a racist apartheid state.

The same charge was also made by the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who in 2014, urged U.S. Presbyterians to vote in favour of divestment from companies that assist "apartheid" Israel's occupation of the Palestinian people.

On Monday, the Israeli Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, called the people of Gaza, "human animals".

Some 1.6 million Palestinians still live in Israel and account for 20% of the population. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, to be illegal under international law.

Starmer has been condemned for saying that Israel has the right to cut off water, energy, and food supplies, to two million people in Gaza - almost half of whom are children. They have been unlawfully 'imprisoned' in Gaza for the last 16 years which is blockaded. This has been denounced as collective punishment for the attack by Hamas on Jewish settlers. Starmer was once a human rights lawyer but he seems to have a blind side when it comes to Palestinians and their rights.

Experts from the U.N. have accused both sides in the Israeli/Hamas conflict of possible war crimes where innocent civilians have been targeted. They've accused the Israel government of Indiscriminate bombing in Gaza. The deliberate withholding of water, energy, and food supplies, can also constitute a war crime under international law.

Both the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, and Keir Starmer, believe that displaying a Palestinian flag in the streets of Britain may be a criminal offence. Nevertheless, Starmeroid has suggested that the Wembley arch should be lit with the colours of the Israeli flag during England's friendly against Australia on Friday.

Russian dissident hospitalised after suspected poisoning.

 

Marina Ovsyannikova

The former Russian TV journalist, Marina Ovsyannikova, has been hospitalised after falling ill in a suspected case of poisoning. She was prosecuted for staging a live on-air protest against Russia's invasion of the Ukraine in March 2022 and was fined.

After her home was raided and she was put under house arrest, she fled Russia and now lives in Paris with her daughter. Earlier this month, a Moscow court sentenced the 45-year-old to eight and a half years’ imprisonment in absentia, for spreading false information about the Russian army.

"Why Do Some Jews Spit on Gentiles"?

 

Israeli Jewish attacks on mosques, Palestinian religious sites and Palestinian worshippers, are well documented. Palestinian attacks on Jewish synagogues and Jews, also occur. Graffiti can often be seen scrawled on walls declaring, "Gas the Arab's."

 Attacks by Israeli Jews on Christians and Christian sites of worship, are also on the rise, since the ultra-Orthodox and religious Zionist parties, formed a hard-right Israeli government. Christian priests are often spat on and harassed by Israeli Jews and Christian grave yards are being desecrated. 

Earlier this year, a conference organised by the Open University of Israel entitled, "Why Do (Some) Jews Spit on Gentiles", was denounced as anti-Semitic and cancelled after intervention by a key aide to the mayor of Jerusalem. The conference was organized in response to a rise in attacks on nuns and priests in Israel.

 The Israeli National Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, has said that "Israelis spitting on Christians is an old Jewish tradition." It might well be, but I'm pretty sure it's not good for Israeli tourism or for Christians.

 Jonathan Reynolds MP, who represents Stalybridge & Hyde, in Greater Manchester, manages to sit with his arse on both sides of the same fence. An invertebrate, he's both Chair of 'Christians on the Left' and vice-chair of 'Labour Friends of Israel' A mealy-mouthed Christian and a languid Labour politician, Reynolds is unlikely to publicly condemn attacks on either Muslim or Christian religious sites by Israeli Jews.

 Amnesty International have accused Israel of committing the crime of apartheid against the Palestinians and enforcing a system of oppression and domination against them. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, denounced Israel as an "apartheid state" and urged Presbyterians to divest from companies that support apartheid Israel. Yet, deluded Reynolds, believes that Israel is the only real democracy in the Middle East and the only country where minorities have full equality before the law. Reynolds conveniently overlooks the fact that much of the West Bank has been under illegal Israeli occupation since 1967 and that many Palestinians have had land stolen from them and their homes demolished by the Israeli army, supporting illegal Jewish settlers.

 The Israeli's have also turned the Gaza strip, into the biggest open-air jail in the world. In 2014, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, defended the Nation-State bill and declared Israel to be, "The national-state of the Jewish people and the Jewish people alone." Despite Israel being a racist apartheid state and violating international law, the leader of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmeroid, says he supports "Zionism without qualification." 

Fox arrested on suspicion of conspiring to commit criminal damage!

 

Mr. Nasty - Laurence Fox

Politically, I would have thought that Laurence Fox, has made much political capital out of a recent police raid at the home he shares with the actress, Billy Piper. He wants to advance the cause of himself and his 'The Reclaim Party' and this police raid has just done that.

I haven't seen the comments that are alleged to have been made, so I can't comment on this. According to this Guardian article, Fox was arrested by the police "on suspicion of conspiring to commit criminal damage to Ulez cameras and encouraging or assisting offences to be committed." In a video that appeared on Twitter, Fox, seems to be suggesting that Britain is becoming a police state.

His opposition to Ulez (ultra low emission zone charges) and his arrest are going to be politically popular with some voters in the capital who don't like Ulez. Incidentally, who set up the camera? The police don't normally announce a raid and Fox seems to be acting a part in a film script. He's certainly not a poor man and he's got some political clout, so he’ll have no problem making himself heard.

Ipso rules that Braverman misled public on ethnicity of 'grooming gangs'!

 

Home Secretary - Suella Braverman

The press regulator Ipso, has ruled that the Home Secretary Suella Braverman, misled people when she falsely claimed that child grooming gangs in the UK were "almost all British-Pakistanis." Ipso said that what Braverman had claimed had contradicted data from her own Home Office department. Although a number of high-profile child grooming gangs have involved British-Pakistanis, research published by the Home Office in 2020, showed that offenders are "most commonly white" and come from diverse backgrounds.

The Mail on Sunday who published Braverman's "significantly misleading" comments, said they had double checked Braverman's decision to single out 'British-Pakistanis' with advisers to the Home Secretary and the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, who confirmed they had 'no concerns with this particular line" and were happy for it to be published.

This is not the first time that politicians have used racism to further their own political agendas and to mislead the public. Both Braverman and her predecessor at the Home Office, Priti Patel, have claimed that most migrants who cross the English Channel in small boats are economic migrants and not genuine asylum seekers. In 2021, Patel told parliament, "70% of individuals on small boats are single men who are effectively economic migrants." In December 2022, Braverman backed the assertion, saying: "There is considerable evidence that people are coming here as economic migrants, illegally."

When the Home Office was asked to confirm what Patel and Braverman had said in March 2023, they were unable to do so, stating that they did not hold "the information requested." However, Home Office data does confirm that of those people who reached the UK by small boat in 2022, some 60% would've been recognised as refugees. In the year to June 2023, some 70% of asylum claims made by people wishing to enter the UK, were successful.

Politicians like Cruella Braverman, need to be reminded of what the 18th century satirist Jonathan Swift said: "where falsehood flies, truth comes limping after it."

The Marx Family.

 

Paul Lafargue and Laura Marx

Karl Marx's maternal uncle was the Dutch tobacco merchant Lion Philips, the grandfather of Gerard and Anton Philips, who founded Philips Electronics. Leon Philips was a financial supporter of Karl Marx. Laura Marx and her husband Paul Lafargue, committed suicide together in 1911. Marx's eldest daughter, Jenny Marx (Longuet), died of bladder cancer in 1883 aged 38.

 In the 1970s, the British Socialist Worker Party (SWP), used to organise 'Right to Work' marches or as some of us, argued at the time, the right to be exploited marches. The Cuban-born, French revolutionary Marxian socialist, Paul Lafargue, believed in the right to shirk. He wrote an interesting book entitled 'The Right to Be Lazy' where he opposed the labour movements fight to expand waged labour or (wage slavery). He argued for its abolition or at least its limitation.

 Marx's youngest daughter, Eleanor (Tussy) Marx, committed suicide in March 1898 aged 43, after drinking prussic acid (cyanide). She lived with a slime ball called Edward Aveling. Eleanor discovered that he'd secretly married another woman while he was living with her. He'd also squandered most of the money that she'd inherited from Fred Engels.

 In 1886, Eleanor Marx visited the USA with Aveling and campaigned for the Chicago Anarchist who had been sentenced to death for a bomb attack during a meeting at the Haymarket in Chicago in May 1886. The bombing was believed to have been done by an agent provocateur. She visited the men in gaol. After their execution, they became known as the 'Chicago Martyrs'. Eleanor also helped to set up with Will Thorne, the General Union of Gas Workers and General Labourers founded in 1889. This became the GMB trade union. 

 

Bee Network launch turns into a damp squib!

 

Andy Burnham - Mayor of Greater Manchester

It's early days yet, but it sounds like Andy Burnham's launch of the Greater Manchester Bee Network new bus system, turned out be more of a damp squib than a 'Big Bang'. The public reported that Bee Network buses had arrived late or didn't turn up at all.

A passenger complained of being late for work and having to use a taxi. Even the Bee Network App was dysfunctional. It all sounds like business as usual on the buses in Greater Manchester, where the bus system is notorious for its unreliability.

Andy Burnham has apologised for the cock up but wants people to appreciate the vast scale of what his team have tried to do within the last 48-hours. This seems like a lame excuse to me and I'm sure it won't impress the public. Transport for Greater Manchester spent £23m of taxpayers' money on consultants' reports assessing franchising and Burnham's expert transport commissioner, Vernon Everitt, recruited from TfL, was appointed and paid £650 a day to get things up and running. Bus reform in Greater Manchester has been under discussion and planning for years now and yet they still can't get the buses to turn up on time, or even to turn up.

I support what Andy Burnham and Greater Manchester Transport are trying to do in reforming public transport in Greater Manchester. Bus deregulation, which was introduced in 1986, has been a complete failure. Bus passenger numbers fell, bus routes were cut, and bus fares increased. Many of the smaller bus operators went out of business and couldn't compete with the likes of Stagecoach and First, who dominate bus public transport in Greater Manchester. Anything has got to be better than what we've presently got in Greater Manchester.

I recently spoke to a woman who told me that she'd been sat waiting for one hour in a freezing cold bus shelter in Ashton-under-Lyne, because her 'one-an-hour' Stagecoach bus hadn't turned up to get her home.

Unless buses can turn up on time and are reliable, Andy Burnham is deluding himself if he thinks the public will abandon their cars for public transport has bad as this, or that the Bee Network will be a success. Let's hope that he can sort things out quickly.

Dan Wootton sacked by MailOnline after GB News suspension!

 

Laurence Fox - Dan Wootton & Ava Evans

The actor Laurence Fox, might be the son of the posh actor James Fox, but he's no English gentleman, even if he often portrays one on the big silver screen.

Fox has been suspended by GB News because of insulting and misogynistic remarks he made live on the Dan Wootton show about the reporter Ava Evans. He asked what "self-respecting man" would "climb into bed", with her, adding: "who would want to shag that." 

Wootton, who won't be climbing into bed with any woman, was suspended after he failed to intervene. He was seen to be smiling and laughing throughout Fox's remarks. He’s also had his MailOnline column terminated following his suspension by GB News. He was already under investigation for allegedly sending sexually explicit texts to colleagues using the pseudonym ‘Martin Branning’. Wootton denies the allegations and says he’s the victim of “dark forces.”

Fox, who is also a host on GB News along with a menagerie of other right-wing cranks, such as Lee Anderson, Esther McVey and Jacob Rees-Mogg, said he stood "by every word of what I said."

In his youth, Fox seems to have been something of addlepated malcontent. He was expelled from the public school Harrow, just before he took his A-Level exams and was unable to obtain a place at any university because of a report from Harrow. It seems his father and grandfather were also expelled from Harrow, so it could be a family tradition. After a short spell working as a gardener and in an office, he decided to follow his family into acting and entered RADA. Fox is married to the actress Billie Piper.