The politics of Nigel Farage.

 

Nigel Farage

Occasionally, Nigel Farage does say something honest. He did say, "Politicians? Let's face it, they're all wankers, the lot of them." When he was the leader of UKIP, he described himself as a "Thatcherite." After Margaret Thatcher's death in 2013, Farage said that he was the only politician "keeping the flame of Thatcherism alive." He's also said that Vladimir Putin is the world leader that he most admires "as an operator."

An inquiry into the death of the ex-Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned with polonium-210 by two Russian agents, concluded that his murder was 'probably' approved by Vladimir Putin. Nathan Gill, the former Welsh leader of Reform UK, has just been jailed for over ten years for taking bribes to make pro-Russian statements. I would be surprised, if many people who support Reform UK, actually know what their policies are. Reform UK are definitely committed to massively reducing public spending and some think they're a threat to the NHS and would introduce an American-style insurance system. 

Britain's class divide: the Cutteslowe Walls of Oxford.

 

Cutteslowe Walls Oxford

The English nationalism of people like Rupert Lowe, the former Reform UK MP, hardly bears scrutiny. I don't feel I have anything in common with Rupert Lowe at all. I'm not a multimillionaire and didn't go to a public school like Radley College.

Is there really such a thing as a British national identity? Have we all got the same identical interests - socially, politically, economically? Very often the British can't get on with one another. Regional and social class identities are often stronger in England than a British national identity. We have the Scouser, Geordie and the Tyke. A Scottish lorry driver, who once gave me a lift, said to me that as far as he was concerned, you could bomb everything south of Birmingham.

The Irish author and playwright, George Bernard Shaw, wrote: "It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth, without making some other Englishman hate or despise him."

In North Oxford, the Cutteslowe Walls, stood for a quarter of a century before they were demolished in 1959. They were built on an estate in an area known as Summertown, to divide the English middle-class residents from the working-class residents. The walls were seven feet high and topped with rotating iron spikes.

They say that in Berwick upon Tweed, some of the inhabitants consider themselves Scottish and some identify as English. Some inhabitants don't identify with either and consider themselves 'Berwickers' first.

Richard Cromwell

 

Richard Cromwell

They didn't fight the English civil war to behead a king, abolish monarchy, or to introduce democracy. General Thomas Fairfax, the leader of England’s ‘New Model Army’ claimed that he was fighting “to maintain the rights of the crown and kingdom jointly”, and for a King who would heed the advice of Parliament. We know from the transcripts of the Putney debates what Cromwell and Henry Ireton felt about manhood suffrage.

Cromwell called the execution of King Charles I, “a cruel necessity.” They felt that they had no choice because of the Kings intransigence and his refusal to bow to the will of Parliament. Oliver Cromwell ruled for less than a decade. He was constantly suspending Parliament because of factionalism. In March 1653, Cromwell staged a military coup. He accused MPs of corruption, procrastination and self-interest. He called some “whoremasters and others were drunkards.” They made him Lord Protector on December 16, 1653, when he was already Lord General.

At one period the country was ruled by Cromwell's Major Generals, who were very unpopular. The Major Generals were instructed to root out sin, discipline the nation, reform its manners and provide for the poor. They cracked down on blasphemy, swearing, drinking, adultery. They banned horse racing, bear baiting and cockfights.

Oliver Cromwell died in September 1658, and was succeeded by his son, Richard Cromwell. Richard Cromwell was nicknamed 'Queen Dick' and 'Tumble-down Dick'. He was seen as a weak leader and he didn't have the support of the army. He abdicated as Lord Protector on 25 May 1659, and fled to France to avoid his creditors. As a visiting Englishman, Richard Cromwell, was once invited to dine with Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, who was unware of who he was. The prince questioned Cromwell about the affairs in England and remarked:

“Well, that Oliver, tho’ he was a traitor and a villain, was a brave man, had great parts, great courage, and was worthy to command; but that Richard, that coxcomb and poltroon, was surely the basest fellow alive; what is become of that fool?” Cromwell replied, “He was betrayed by those he most trusted, and who had been most obliged by his father.”

When he returned to England in 1680, his wife Dorothy, had died. He lived out his days in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire and used the name, John Clarke. He died in 1712, aged 85. Although King Charles I, executed or sought to capture the Regicides, he didn’t go after Cromwell's son because he hadn't signed the death warrant.

Former Reform UK Welsh leader jailed for ten years for bribery.

 

Although many British politicians are suspected of being on the take, it's almost unheard of to charge and convict a British politician with bribery. Nevertheless, they've just given a 10-and-a-half-year jail sentence to Nathan Gill, the former Reform UK Welsh leader, for taking financial Russian bribes.

Gill, 52, from Llangefni, Anglesey, pleaded guilty to eight counts of bribery. As an MEP, and a key member of UKIP and Brexit party groups, he was paid by an alleged Russian asset, Oleg Voloshyn, to make pro-Russian speeches. Voloshyn, who is wanted for treason in the Ukraine, had described Gill's work as "outstanding." A Reform UK spokesman said they welcomed the sentence that Nathan Gill had received and described his actions as "reprehensible, treasonous and unforgivable."

Although the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, has said in the past that Vladimir Putin is the world leader that he most admires, praising his skills "as an operator", he described Gill as a 'bad apple" who had betrayed him. The police believe that Gill was primarily motivated by financial need, but they also said that he had sympathy with the positions that he was being bribed to take. There have been calls for Farage's party to launch a thorough investigation to guarantee that pro-Russia links are rooted out of Reform UK.

Over many years, there have been numerous press reports about Russian money being used to finance anti-EU, ultra conservative, and far-rights groups, throughout Europe, with the aim of destabilising Europe. In France, the former political party Front Nationale, led by Marine Le Pen, is known to have accepted Russian money.

Sentencing Gill at the Old Bailey, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, said the former Reform UK Welsh leader, had betrayed trust placed in him by the public and had "advanced narratives advantageous to Russian interests concerning the Ukraine." Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: "A traitor was at the very top of Reform UK, aiding and abetting a foreign adversary. Nigel Farage and his party are a danger to national security." 

Enoch Burke returned to jail.

 

Enoch Burke

Enoch Burke is the Irish school teacher who was dismissed from his job for gross misconduct because he refused to use the preferred pronoun 'they' in respect of a transgendered pupil. I understand that he did so on the grounds that it conflicted with his Christian religious beliefs and conscience. The school where he taught, Wilson's Hospital School, in County Westmeath, is a Church of Ireland, fee paying private school.

After his dismissal, Mr Burke, continued to turn up for work, and the school sought an injunction restraining Mr Burke from trespassing on school premises. Due to him defying the injunction, Enoch Burke has incurred fines of €225,000 and has served a number of prison sentences. A judge in the High Court in Dublin has now returned Mr Burke to prison, for what he called a "deliberate, sustained and concerted attack" on the authority of the civil courts and the rule of law. Mr Justice Cregan accused Mr Burke of pursuing a "fanatical campaign" for the last three years and said his decision was not about transgenderism. He said: "despite his time in prison, and despite these fines, Mr Burke persists in disobeying the court order."

The case of Enoch Burke is not a unique or isolated case but it's one of the most extreme cases. In Britain, there have been a number of cases where people have been dismissed from their jobs under similar circumstances, for refusing to act in a way that was contrary to their Christian beliefs and principles and conscience. But many of these people didn't choose to turn themselves into Christian martyrs, in the way that Mr Burke has chosen to do, by defying the law.

Freedom of conscience and the right to hold religious beliefs and principles, is protected under Article 9 the Human Rights Act (HRA) 1998, but it's not an absolute right. Many of the articles contained within the HRA are either 'limited' or 'qualified', meaning they can be restricted under specific, lawful circumstances, provided the restriction is necessary, legitimate, and proportionate, to achieve a specific aim such as protecting public safety or the rights of others.

Labour to make shotgun ownership Section 1. Will air weapons be next?

 

I think the issue of legal gun ownership in Britain is really about social class. When I used to shoot 12 bore shotguns, every shotgun owner that I knew, always said that the police do not like "people like us having guns." They meant the working-class having access to guns. There's a mind-set in Britain that seems to think that shooting and hunting should be the preserve of only landowners and the green welly brigade.

If you look at the history of gun laws in Britain, you will see that during the reign of Queen Victoria, gun laws in Britain were virtually non-existent, and gun deaths were virtually unheard of. When I was growing up, many of us had airguns and I knew neighbours, who had shotguns. People went rabbiting with lurcher’s and ferrets.

Two events seem to have led to the tightening up of gun laws in Britain. One of these events, was the Russian Revolution in 1917 and the second, was the demobilisation of British troops at the end of WWI. In recent years, there's been a crackdown when there has been a shooting incident such as Hungerford. A gun owner told me recently that in the 1960s, you could buy a shotgun license for 10 shillings at a British post office.

If shotguns become Section 1, instead of Section 2, it will become far more difficult for people to own a shotgun. This could affect clay pigeon shooters and shooting clubs as well as farmers.  In law, there's an assumption that people are entitled to own a shotgun, but not a rifle. I believe you can also appeal against a refusal to be issued with a shotgun certificate.

Labour are very much anti-gun urbanites. I expect that they will target airgun owners next along with crossbow owners and the owners of catapults. In Scotland you already need an Air Weapon Certificate, to own or purchase an air weapon.

On being sane in insane places.

 

Jack Nicholson - One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', is possibly one of the greatest films of all time. There's really nothing mentally ill about Randle Patrick McMurphy but he contrives to get himself sent to a psychiatric hospital because he doesn't like doing prison work. He's a recusant who likes to take the piss and have a good time. He actually thinks everybody else in the hospital is a nutter but discovers that he's the only one that has been committed. Nurse Ratched is a complete control freak who takes a dislike to McMurphy because he won't conform or comply. After he attacks nurse Ratched, following a patient's attempted suicide, McMurphy is given a lobotomy and turned into a vegetable.

I remember some years ago reading about something called the 'Thud experiment', or what was correctly called, the Rosenhan experiment.  A group of psychologists and their students at Stanford University sought to test the validity of psychiatric diagnosis. The participants in the experiment, all psychology students or their mentors, submitted themselves to various psychiatric institutions across the west coast of America and feigned auditory hallucinations. David Rosenhan, who arranged the experiment, a Stamford University professor, and eight other people, five men and three women, entered 12 hospitals and submitted themselves for evaluation. All the participants claimed to be hearing a voice utter the words 'empty', 'hollow' or 'thud' and nothing else. Once accepted, they acted normally. Each was diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder and given antipsychotic medication. Some of the participants were actually admitted to the hospital for brief periods of time, ranging from 7 to 52 days. Although they presented with identical symptoms, five were diagnosed with schizophrenia and one with manic depressive psychosis. None of the pseudo-patients were identified as impostors by hospital staff, though some psychiatric patients, seemed to be able to correctly identify them as impostors. One nurse observed the note taking behaviour of one pseudo-patient, and consider it pathological.

The study was eventually published in the journal 'Science' in 1973, with the title, 'On Being Sane In Insane Places'. Many defended psychiatry against the experiment's conclusions, but the experiment is said to have accelerated the move towards reforming mental institutions and the release of many patients from mental institutions. 

The founder of Sinn Fein called for strikers during the Dublin Lockout to be bayonetted.

 

Arthur Griffith

During the eleven months of the Irish Civil War (1922-23), more Irish were killed than had been killed during the War of Independence during (1919-21). Approximately 2000 people were killed during the War of Independence and it's believed that some 4,000-5,000 people were killed, during the Irish Civil War.

Ireland never became the socialist republic of James Connolly, it became the Catholic, Conservative, Nationalist, country, of Eamon de Valera and Fianna Fail. Abortion and contraception were banned and young pregnant unmarried girls, were incarcerated in Magdalene laundries run by sadistic nuns. Many leading Irish nationalists, like Michael Collins, Eamon de Valera and Arthur Griffith, were not socialists. They often believed that class struggle undermined Irish national unity.

During the Dublin Lockout of 1913, Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Fein, had called for the strikers to be bayonetted. In 1905, Sinn Fein's membership was based on shopkeepers, employers and large farmers. It opposed strikes for higher wages because it believed that it would harm the interests of Irish business.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), opposed the Marxist-Leninist direction of the Official IRA and viewed communism as an 'alien ideology' and a dangerous distraction from the primary goal of establishing an independent united Ireland. An early PIRA slogan was "We serve neither Queen nor Commissar." Some PIRA members did develop revolutionary ideas while imprisoned but the organisation remained nationalist rather than communist.

Child Exploitation in Victorian Britain.

 

Victorian child exploitation

Many Victorian working-class kids were literally worked to death. Some of these children died of exhaustion. This is mentioned in E.P. Thompson's book 'The Making of the English Working Class'. He refers to the death of a young boy in Cragg Dale, in West Yorkshire. An Anglican minister, told a social reformer that he'd recently buried a boy who had died. The boy had been found asleep at work with his arms full of wood and had been beaten awake. He had worked 17 hours and was carried home by his father. He was unable to eat his supper and woke at 4.00 a.m. the next morning. He asked his brother's if they could see the lights in the mill as he was afraid of being late for work, and then died. His younger brother aged nine, had died previously. The father was described as "sober and industrious" and a Sunday school teacher.

The exploitation of children on this scale and intensity, was one of most shameful events in Britain's history. Thompson says that many English middle-class people of this period, were infected with class hatred for the labouring classes and suffered from "atrophy of conscience" and a "deformity of the sensibility." Lord Shaftesbury had said that the Anglican clergy as "a body...will do nothing on the children's behalf."

In Chapter 25, of 'Das Kapital', Karl Marx, quoted extensively from the work of Reverend Joseph Townsend called "A Dissertation on the Poor Laws, by a Well-wisher of Mankind.” (1786). Marx referred to Townsend as that "delicate priestly sycophant." Townsend had argued that poverty and hunger are necessary to force the working-class to labour for capitalists. He had written:

"It seems to be a law of nature that the poor should be to a certain degree improvident, that there may always be some to perform the most servile, the most sordid, and the most ignoble offices in the community. The stock of human happiness is thereby much increased, whilst the more delicate are not only relieved of drudgery - but are left at liberty without interruption to pursue those callings which are suited to their various dispositions..."

Like Edmund Burke, Townsend believed that the laws of commerce were the laws of nature and therefore the laws of God. 

Of the 346 soldiers executed by the British army in WWI, only three were British army officers.

 

Shot At Dawn

There were 3,080 deaths sentences given to soldiers serving in the British army during WWI, of which, 346 were actually carried out. The overwhelming majority of soldiers executed (266 out of 346), were shot for desertion. Most of these soldiers were private soldiers. Only three British officers were executed during WWI. (Source: Tommy - Richard Holmes).

In his book called 'Memoirs of a British Infantry Officer', Siegfried Sassoon, says that many British army officers lost their nerve, but they weren't shot for cowardice. Many of these remained in the barracks or were given desk jobs back in Blighty. Sassoon said you couldn't do this with Tommy. The ordinary soldier was given a No. 9 pill and he stayed where he was until he was wounded or killed.

In October 1915, Second Lieutenant Edward Underhill, "wrote bitterly that his county men had no idea what the war was about." Many did think that they were fighting a war to keep Britain from being ruled by the Germans. Although the Germans did shell and bomb parts of Britain, an invasion of Britain, was not really part of Germany's war aims. A British infantry officer, remarked on, "how much more seriously the company would take the war were the (Ypres) Salient, around Preston, or Bolton, or Manchester.”

Richard Holmes writes that, "Two general truths define the British soldier's relationship with his enemy on the West Front: the first is that he generally had a high regard for the Germans and the second, is that the fighting man, rarely felt a high degree of personal hostility towards them."

It seems that the Saxon Germans disliked the Prussians, more than they did the British. The same can be said of men from Alsace who were fighting in the German army. If Robert Graves is to be believed, both the Germans and the British, disliked the French, because they ripped both sides off. 

The Britain of my father's generation, was a lot less complicated than it is today.

 

The Home Guard

My Dad died in 2015 and would've been 100 next September 2026. He was called up as the war was coming to an end and he spent his army service in Britain. He was told that they were going to be used to fight the Japs.

Britain today, is not the country that my father or the elderly gentleman, on Good Morning Britain, grew up in. Before he was conscripted, my father was in the Home Guard aged 17 and that would have been, in 1943. He told me that on one occasion he was asked to go and check on an ammunition dump in the town where he lived. My father and another young man, were issued with two .303 Lee Enfield rifles and both were given five rounds of live ammunition. Can you imagine doing that today with a 17-year-old youth, who doesn't know what discipline or respect is? I believe that today, suicide is now the biggest killer of men in Britain, aged under 50.

For most of his adult life, my father drove articulated lorries, and he was never required to sit a driving test in his life, nor was he ever unemployed. He said that when he started driving there was no requirement to sit a test. He said you bought a car and if you could prove you hadn't a knock within six months, they gave you a driving license.

The Britain of my father's day, was a lot less complicated than it is today. Despite his age, I never heard my father ever grumble about the way in which he thought Britain had changed. He just got on with living and tried to adapt accordingly. He used to say to me that there was good and bad in every kind and just treat people as you find them. 

Those young lads who fought in WWII, were fighting the Nazis and Hitler. It's thanks to them that we never finished up with a Nazi jackboot stomping on our faces and a Europe dominated by Fascist dictators.

Multiculturalism.

 

"Multiculturalism" can mean a number of different things, but at its simplest, I suppose it can be defined as allowing many different cultures to co-exist within one nation and respecting one another's culture.

You often hear the term "BAME Communities", which is rather meaningless, because there isn't really such a thing. It's a lot of wishful thinking. These different ethnic groups don't really mix with one another and have little in common with one another and can often, be hostile to one another.

The old gentleman who fought in WWII, who appeared on TV, didn't say why he felt the way he did, so we can only speculate. The Britain that he grew up in, is very much different today. I'm 71, and as a child, I rarely saw a black face. Many people who came to Britain in the 1950s, from the Caribbean, saw Britain as their "mother country." As they were part of the British Empire, they had been educated in much the same way as English people. They were invited to come to England and met with a lot of racial abuse.

In retrospect, I believe that many people think that fighting Hitler and the Nazis was a war worth fighting. It's thanks to people like this old gentleman, that we never came under the heel of the Nazi jackboot and fascism. The plight of European Jews was not a casus belli for WWII, because most people didn't know about the concentration camps until the camps were liberated.

If economics is a science, why did so many economists fail to foresee the 2008 financial crises?

 

The economist J.M. Keynes made a lot of money from his investments, but being an economist, won't necessarily make you a rich man, or even a successful businessman. There's something called the "Fallacy of Composition", that suggests that although some people can succeed with a particular business, it doesn't mean that everyone can succeed with it.

 The American economist, J.K. Galbraith, said that "economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists." For decades, economists played an important role in creating the conditions for the 2008 financial crisis and dozens of smaller crises that came before it, arising mainly from financial deregulation. The 1982, Third World debt crises and the banking crises in Chile; the 1995 Mexican pesos crises; the 1998 Russian crises and the banking crises in Sweden, Finland and Norway, following financial deregulations in the late 1980s. Most economists didn't predict or foresee the 2008 financial crises that was completely man-made. It didn't arise from any war or economic depression but it nearly collapsed the whole capitalist financial system. It was the equivalent of financial markets getting mad cow disease.

The ‘Sage of Omaha’, Warren Buffet, called 'derivatives", the financial weapons of mass destruction, whereas, Alan Greenspan, of the U.S. Fed, thought they made markets more efficient. The complexity of these new financial products - Asset Backed Securities; Collateralized Debt Obligations and Credit Default Swaps, is exactly what made them dangerous.

In 2013, the Nobel Prize in Economics, was shared by two American economists who held completely opposing views about the causes of the 2008 financial crises. Eugene Fama, who believes in the "efficient markets hypotheses" argued that financial markets were a casualty of the recession and did not cause it. He argued that the U.S. government made lending and credit too easy to obtain and that banks acted rationally, in responding to the incentives put in place by an interfering government. In contrast, Robert Shiller, the other prize winner, stressed how investors can be swayed by psychology and irrational exuberance, which affects the workings of the market.

In a TV interview in 1995, Buffet said: "I personally think that society is responsible for a very significant percentage of what I have earned. If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru or someplace, you'll find out how much this talent is going to produce in the wrong kind of soil. I will be struggling thirty years later. I work in a market system that happens to mean that everyone can succeed within it."

Unfortunately, not everyone does succeed in the capitalist market system and there's a lot of evidence that markets are routinely rigged in favour of the rich and that there's mis-selling of financial products and lies told to regulators. Markets may also fail to produce socially optimal outcomes.

Lee (30 pence) Anderson, accuses the CAB of "gaming the system" to help people get disability benefits.

 

Lee Anderson

Lee Anderson MP, a former Labour councillor and Nottinghamshire miner, and former member of the Carlton Club, has just accused the Citizens Advice Bureau, who he used to work for, of "gaming the system" by helping people to get on disability benefits like PIP.

What a louse! If there's one thing I can't abide, it's a Tory in clogs and a Judas, who stabs his own class in the back. It wasn't long ago Anderson was denouncing food banks as unnecessary and claimed you could knock up a meal for 30 pence. If a wealthy man seeks professional advice to avoid paying tax, his he gaming the system, Lee? If a British MP fiddles his expenses, is he trying to game the sytem?

Each year hundreds of millions of pounds of benefit payments go unclaimed by working-class people because they find it far too difficult and complicated to fill in the forms and so, they seek advice and help from bodies like the CAB, to do so.

The Nottinghamshire coal fields, have a history of producing scab and blackleg miners like Roy Lynk and George Spencer, who have supported the Tories and the bosses during miners strikes. 

Colin Ward.

 

Colin Ward

An interesting article on the English anarchist Colin Ward. I used to read the magazine 'New Society' and wrote articles for Freedom Press. I am certainly familiar with the ideas of Colin Ward. This article quotes the historian Raphael Samuels, who wrote of Ward's 'constructive antinomianism' which took its energy from having "no articles of faith to subscribe to, no canonical texts to refer to, no gods or heroes to placate."

Ward said himself that the three people who had influenced him most, were Martin Buber, the German anarchist, Gustav Landauer and the Russian anarchist, Prince Peter Kropotkin. If Colin Ward did have a canonical text, it would have been "Fields, Factories and Workshops" by Kropotkin. Ward used the term "anarchist seeds beneath the snow", to describe his central argument that an anarchist society is already in existence operating quietly beneath the weight of the state. For Colin Ward, "anarchy in action", consisted of everyday acts of human organisation rooted in voluntary associations, mutual aid, self-management and co-operation. Ward advocated for tenant run housing associations, worker co-operatives, self-build housing, allotments, friendly societies, and self-help strategies. 

The Royal National Lifeboat Institute, was for Colin Ward, a classic British example of a voluntary non-hierarchical organisation driven by mutual aid. The lifeboats are manned by volunteers and the organisation is financed by public donations and not by the government.

In search of the pristine Englishman.

 

John Bull

Is there any such thing as a pristine Englishman? Our language is a mixture of French, Latin, Anglo-Saxon and Norse, and so are our genes. We talk about people having Roman noses. Many of the words we use, have originated from India and the rest of the British Empire. Old English would be incomprehensible to most of us and Middle English, barely comprehensible.

Around 6 million people living in Britain are said to be of Irish descent, including me. Given that we're a mongrel race, a mixture of all sorts of cultures, and have colonized and conquered much of the world, I find it strange that so many people in Britain, are fixated on colour and race and have an aversion to foreigners. At the end of the day, we're all part of the human race.

In 1940, Bill Connor, of the Daily Mirror, wrote: "Our children are guarded from diphtheria by what a Japanese and German did. They are saved from smallpox by an Englishman's work. They are saved from rabies because of a Frenchman. From birth to death, they are surrounded by an invisible host - the spirits of men who never served a lesser loyalty than the welfare of mankind." 

Epstein claimed he bankrolled the Duchess of York for 15 years.

 

Sarah Ferguson

I find it quite extraordinary that any British charity would have wanted their name associated with the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson.

The royal biographer, Andrew Lownie, claims that the paedophile financier, Jeffrey Epstein, gave Fergie around £2 million. Epstein claimed the Duchess of York and her two daughters, met with him in New York, to celebrate his release from prison after being jailed for soliciting prostitution from a minor.  A source close to Fergie, insisted that neither she or her daughters, "had any recollection of such a visit."

Unearthed emails show that in January 2020, Fergie wrote to Epstein saying: "Is there any chance I could borrow 50 or 100,000 U S. dollars to help get through the small bills that are pushing me over. Had to ask " In another email, on July 10, 2010, Fergie wrote to Epstein, "My friend, am I allowed to visit Little St Jeff's? Or is it unavailable to bankrupts." Epstein responded by saying, "I'll meet you there. Call me", and gave his mobile number.

I remember when Fergie was caught out in a sting operation by the News of the World trying to sell access to Prince Andrew to a fake sheikh for £500,000. She told the fake sheikh she could "open any door you want. Look after me and he'll look after you... you'll get it back tenfold." When she got bubbled, she apologised and called it a "serious lapse in judgement." Prince Andrew denied any knowledge about the arrangement.

I think the English radical, Tom Paine, put it better when he wrote: "I have an aversion to monarchy, as being too debasing to the dignity of man." "The time is not very far distant when England will laugh at itself for sending to Holland, Hanover, Zell, or Brunswick, for men, at the expense of a million a year, who understood neither her laws, her language, nor her interests, and whose capacities would scarcely have fitted them for the office of a parish constable."

The enigma called Joseph Stalin.

 

Vasily, Svetlana, and their father Joseph Stalin

If members of Stalin's inner circle shed tears on the death of Joseph Stalin, it was tears of relief. Khrushchev said they all knew they were temporary men. They didn't like getting invites to Stalin's dacha at Kuntsevo.

I have read a number of books on Joseph Stalin and he was a very cynical but interesting and ruthless man. He seems to have been devastated when he lost his first wife, Kato Svanidze, but he didn't care much for their son, Yakov Dzhugashvili, who tried to kill himself. Stalin joked that Yakov was that useless that he couldn't even kill himself properly. When the Germans notified him that they had his son in captivity, Stalin his reputed to have told them that he didn't have a son. His second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, gave him two children (Vasily and Svetlana), before she committed suicide. She was one of very few who would stand up to him in public and she was often seen arguing with him.

Stalin had many of his in-laws imprisoned, possibly because they knew too much, but he was close to Svetlana, as a child, who he called "My little sparrow." Nevertheless, when Svetlana inquired about the whereabouts of a favourite aunt who had disappeared, Stalin told her not to play the Attorney with him. He told his youngest son Vasily - who used his father's position to advance his own interests - that he wasn't Stalin and neither was his father, because Stalin represented Soviet power. It's known that Stalin would often send sums of money to old friends or pose for photographs with holiday makers in Sochi, where he had a holiday home. There were also occasions when he would tell his driver to stop the car in order to offer people a lift, if he saw them stood in the rain at a bus stop, on his way home to Kuntsevo. Artem Mikoyan, the brother of Anastas Mikoyan, one of Stalin's ministers, recalled having an angina attack when he was staying with Stalin at his holiday home in Sochi. He said he went to bed and late in the night, he felt somebody tucking him in. When he looked up it was Stalin.

Joseph Stalin turned a young peasant lad, called Pavlik Morozov, into a Soviet hero and martyr, after he'd been killed for denouncing his father as a Kulak who had hoarded grain. But Stalin was reportedly heard saying, "What a little swine, denouncing his own father." Stalin liquidated many of the old Bolsheviks and returned many German communists back to Germany, after he entered into a pact with Nazi Germany. Some say that Stalin killed more communists than Adolf Hitler.

In Remembrance of Private W.T. Cooper.

 

Meteren Military Cemetery 

I know of two men who refused to be conscripted in WWII. They were told they would have to go before a tribunal who would decide if they had grounds for conscientious objection. They both refused on the grounds that the only judge of their conscience was themselves and no one else. I think they went to prison.

I've never been a soldier but I believe soldiers don't really fight for king and country. What they fight for is to keep themselves alive and their mates alive. Why do you think Lord Kitchener set up “Pals Battalions?” The idea was to aid recruitment and it was thought by the military top brass, that men who knew one another, would support each other. After major battles whole streets in Britain could lose their menfolk.

I remember reading about my great grandfather's brother, who died in France. A married man from Stalybridge, with several children, he'd served 12 years in the British army and then went on the reserve list. He was called up in August 1914, served in the Warwickshire Regiment, and was dead by October 1914. Private W.T. Cooper, was buried in Meteren Military Cemetery in Belgium.  His name is inscribed on the cenotaph on Trinity Street in Stalybridge. His youngest daughter, Hilda, never knew her father, but before every Remembrance Sunday, she always pinned a posy of flowers next to his name on the cenotaph. Private Cooper's death was reported in the Ashton Reporter under the heading "Pathetic Coincidence", because he died on the same day as another man from Stalybridge, who also got killed in France. When I first saw a photograph of him in the Ashton Reporter, I actually thought it was my grandfather, because he was the spitting image of him. I remember thinking to myself, what's my grandad doing wearing an Edwardian frock coat with a nosegay in his lapel.  My great grandfather was more fortunate, because he lost an arm and was sent back to Blighty.

I doubt that many British soldiers in WWI, really knew what they were fighting for. Some may have thought that they were fighting to protect their families and loved ones from a hostile enemy, but an invasion of Britain, was never really part of Germany's war aims. The Germans did bomb and shell parts of Britain, but most of that war was fought in France. At the end of the war, Britain and France, carved up between themselves what was left of the Ottoman Empire, and Britain bombed the Arabs and seized the oil wells of Mesopotamia. That war was an imperialist war, a war between ruling classes. 

The Prince & The Paedo.

 

Prince Andrew & Jeffrey Epstein 

Prince Andrew took Emily Maitlis for a ride during the infamous "car-crash" interview. The "we are in this together" email that Prince Andrew sent to Epstein on 28 February 2011, was sent the day after the photograph of him and Virginia Guiffre was first  published in the British press. He told Maitlis that he ended contact with Jeffrey Epstein in December 2010, but this was obviously untrue.

I haven't seen the entire email but have only read extracts from it. I don't think Prince Andrew refers to that photograph in the email, which seems rather odd, given that he says that he's no recollection of having ever met Virginia Guiffre, and insists that the photograph is a fake. 

I believe Virginia Guiffre/Roberts, sold that photograph to the Mail on Sunday for £120,000. She settled a law suit against Jeffrey Epstein for $500,000 and settled a law suit against Ghislaine Maxwell for an undisclosed sum. Prince Andrew is reputed to have paid her £12 million to settle a law suit she brought against him. He didn't admit any liability and continues to insist that he's no recollection of ever having met Virginia Guiffre. Her lawyers, said they had six witnesses who could link Prince Andrew to Virginia Guiffre.

Religion & the rise of capitalism in Britain.

 

For the father of classical economics, Adam Smith, the merchant, entrepreneur, and manufacturer, were the best example of the "energetic man". But if you read his book 'The Wealth of Nations', Smith is very critical of the capitalist who he thinks shouldn't be involved in the affairs of government, "the rulers of mankind", because he's driven by narrow self-interest, and is a man, whose public integrity and acumen are severely compromised. He believed that both the capitalists and labourer look to their own self-interest, but they promote a beneficial social outcome that is not of their intention, guided by an "invisible hand." Nor is he much impressed with the politician - "the skill of that insidious and crafty animal, vulgarly called a statesman or politician."

Smith writes: "Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality. For one very rich man, there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions." Smith argues that civil government is instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor. Yet, he saw capitalism as the surest means of wealth accumulation and considered the signs of a properly functioning market system, to be the maximization of material benefits to society's lowest members.

If you read 'Religion and the rise of capitalism', by R.H. Tawney, you would wonder how Britain ever became a capitalist society. Religion and traditional virtue taught that avarice was a vice, usury a misdemeanour, and the love of money, was considered detestable. As the Bible says, "And having food and raiment let us be therewith content...For the love of money is the root of all evil..." (Timothy, Chapter 6, 8-10).

Christianity placed greater emphasis on the after-life than this life. Since this world for them, is merely the ante-room to eternity, such temporal things as wealth and poverty mattered very little.

The conspiracy that toppled Jeremy Corbyn.

 

I always thought that all the brouhaha about antisemitism being rife in Corbyn's Labour Party, was absolute nonsense. I suppose you can find anti-Semites anywhere, but do they really join the Labour Party?

This conspiracy orchestrated by political opponents of Jeremy Corbyn, was always about bringing down Jeremy Corbyn. We we're told that a Corbyn Labour government would pose "an existential threat" to Jews living in Britain. Even today, certain Labour figures continue to wonder why Angela Rayner and Keir Starmer campaigned twice - in 2017 and 2019 - to get Corbyn elected into 10 Downing Street, if they harboured serious suspicions about Corbyn's attitude towards the so-called Jewish community. Keir Starmer succeeded Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party and ripped up everything that Corbyn stood for. He excluded Corbyn from the Parliamentary Labour Party, and sought to keep those on the left, from being adopted as Labour candidates.

In September 2018, Angela Rayner had stated that opponents of Corbyn and Labour, would need a "bigger smear" if they were to succeed in undermining the party. In October 2020, Rayner was publicly accused of having expressed anti-Semitic views herself by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA). Four months before becoming an MP, Rayner had referenced a book called the 'Holocaust Industry' by Norman Finkelstein in an article written for the Morning Star in 2015. Rayner is thought to have asked somebody else to write the article for her. The book had suggested that some members of the Jewish community exploit the Holocaust for political and financial advantage. Rayner had praised Finkelstein's book as 'seminal'. She was forced to make an apology, claiming that there had been a misunderstanding. 

Starmer says Birmingham's ban on Israeli racist football thugs is wrong and antisemitic.

 

Aston Villa have said that Birmingham City's Safety Advisory Group (SAG), have decided that football fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv should not be allowed to attend the Europa League fixture on 6 November, over safety concerns.

Many of the supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv are racist thugs and hooligans, who have caused widespread public unrest in other European cities. They have a reputation for doing this.  

Israel is an apartheid racist state and the country's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC). We should be boycotting Israeli football teams.

A self-confessed Zionist, Keir Starmer, has already said the decisions to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans was wrong and he declared, "we will not tolerate antisemitism on our streets." The government are trying to overturn the ban.

It is totally irresponsible for Starmer to question the decision of Birmingham City Council, if it has genuine concerns about public safety in its city. This is what makes Starmer totally unfit to be the UK Prime Minister. 

Blacklist Support Group seeks judicial review over the inquiry into undercover policing.

 

Dave Smith - Blacklist Support Group

I gather that Dave Smith of the Blacklist Support Group (BSG), will not be called to give evidence before the Mitting Inquiry into undercover policing. Dave says that the inquiry has told him that he has nothing to say.

Many blacklisted construction workers and trades unionists, were spied upon by undercover Special Branch police officers of the SDS. I understand that the BSG are seeking a judicial review over the inquiry's decision not to call Dave Smith to give evidence. It is known that these undercover police officers as well as MI5 officers, shared intelligence they had gathered on people with employers, that led to some construction workers being blacklisted.

The undercover police officer, John Dines, used the alias, John Barker, to spy on members of London Greenpeace. I believe that London Greenpeace had been infiltrated by that many private investigators, that Dines had to tell them to fuck off. When the beef burger chain, McDonald's, sued two London Greenpeace members, Dave Morris and Helen Steel, for libel, they were given pro-bono legal advice by the young socialist lawyer, Keir Starmer. Dines attended some of these meetings with Starmer and intelligence was shared by the police, with McDonald's.

Helen Steel and Dave Morris were sued because of a leaflet they had distributed called "What's Wrong With Macdonald's?" What they didn't know at the time, was that the leaflet, had been largely written by another undercover Special Branch officer called Bob Lambert, who used the alias, Bob Robinson. Both Lambert and Dines, entered into sexual relationships with female activists. One of those women, described Lambert as “very seductive.” Another activist described Lambert as an “expert on anarchism.” 

Does Lee Anderson lack a sense of proportion?

 

Lee Anderson

Wearing a flat cap on his way to Westminster, Lee Anderson, the saviour of Britain, looks and sounds like a thug out of "Peaky Blinders." I wonder if he's got any razor blades in that flat cap. Anderson, thinks that people who carry a knife should receive a mandatory jail sentence. 

Lee, if you're carrying a knife to cut up a piece of thick twist for your pipe, should you be jailed for this? Is it really fair to pipe smokers? And what about the hunting fraternity or green welly brigade, who carry a knife to skin a dead animal in the field? Should they be jailed as well?  Should people be jailed for carrying a Swiss army knife or an electrician, who carries a knife, to splice a piece of wire? Surely, it all depends on why you're carrying the knife and whether you have a reasonable excuse for carrying it. Lee, it's called having a sense of proportion. 

Stalybridge guitarist Steve Whalley dies suddenly aged 74.

 

Steve Whalley

I was told last night (Monday), in Wetherspoon's that the guitarist Steve Whalley, had died after suffering a heart attack aged 74.

Most people who knew of Steve Walley associate him with the bands Slade II and Sad Cafe. I never saw him play with either of those bands. The two bands that I did see him play with were the local Stalybridge band called 'The Puritans' and a Manchester band called Greasy Bear, who were a regular feature at the Magic Village in Manchester. I remember watching The Puritans do a gig at Ashton College of Further Education in the early 1970s. The band did mainly cover songs like "Sunshine Help Me" by Spooky Tooth. Whalley played a white Fender Telecaster through a 100-watt Triumph amplifier. As a local band, The Puritans, were very good. It was Steve's brother Pete Whalley, who told me that he'd joined Slade.

I can't imagine that Steve Whalley was ever a big fan of Slade. The one musician that he did admire, and who I think, he tried to emulate, was Steve Winwood of the band Traffic. A former pupil of West Hill School, Steve was brought up in the Carrbrook area of Stalybridge. The last time that I saw Steve Walley play was at the former Conservative club on Mottram Road, Stalybridge, which I think was then called the 71 Bar. I remember him saying that night that most of his old mates from West Hill School were in the audience. Steve Whalley left Stalybridge many years ago and I believe he moved down south, possibly to Surrey.