Corruption in Local Government? by Les May

ASKED recently on the BBC News Channel programme ‘Dateline London’ what she thought too little attention was paid to, Bronwen Maddox, director of the Institute for Government, replied ‘Corruption in Local Government’.

I have previously described the difficulties I have had in getting answers from my local council to Freedom of Information (FOI) questions regarding the ‘declarable interests’ of Councillor Faisal Rana. My conclusion was that Rochdale Borough Council is ‘Institutionally Corrupt’.

It is surely extraordinary that only after the intervention of my local MP, Chris Clarkson, have I been able to get a response to questions I first submitted in April.

Corruption isn’t only about money in brown envelopes and influencing planning decisions it’s also about a commitment to openness by council officers in the dealings with the public.

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Mini-umbrella companies set up to avoid tax

by Ruby Flanagan

Reporter, Accountancy Daily

10 May 2021

Around 48,000 mini-umbrella companies (MUC) have been created in the past five years in a bid to reduce the tax and national insurance contributions (NIC) paid by recruitment agencies

A BBC investigation by radio programme File on 4 found that that more than 40,000 people in the Philippines had been recruited to front British companies that would then employ staff as subcontractors for employers including G4S and NHS Covid-19 test centres.

The investigation discovered that people were being recruited through Facebook and word of mouth, with the only qualifications to get the job being access to an internet connection, a mobile phone number, an email address and an ID document.

The BBC investigation found that the mini-umbrella companies tended to incorporate in the UK with a British director, who would then resign after a short period of time with a Filipino director appointed in their place. One example in the investigation was a contractor working for G4S at a Covid-19 testing site who gained the job through an agency called HR Go Recruitment. His payslip stated that he was not being paid by G4S but another company that was only a few weeks old with a director based in the Philippines.

The mini-umbrella companies can claim the government’s employment allowance, which offers an annual discount of £4,000 per company on national insurance contributions (NICs) as an incentive to take on more workers. Without this, the employer would pay 13.8% in NICs on employee earnings if they earned more than £170 per week.

Mini-umbrella companies split up a temporary workforce into hundreds of small limited companies, with the sole purpose of enabling the fraud. There are usually promoter businesses who facilitate the fraud and will link other companies to the operation to create intricate layers.

An HMRC spokesperson said: ‘Our Fraud Investigation Service is using its civil and criminal powers to challenge those who are involved and facilitating the MUC fraud, including recently deregistering more than 22,000 MUCs who we believe are exploiting the VAT Flat Rate Scheme and removing their access to the Employment Allowance.

‘We have also made a number of arrests in relation to MUC fraud and also taken steps to recover input tax in cases where it has established that a business in the supply chain knew, or should have known, that there was fraud.’

Some of the hallmarks of MUC fraud include unusual company names, unrelated business activity descriptions on Companies House, foreign nationals listed as directors, unusually high turnover of workers, and short periods of being established. HMRC is also working closely with government departments and trade bodies to increase awareness of the risks involved with engaging with a mini-umbrella company fraud model.

Andy Sanford, a partner at Blick Rothenberg, said: ‘Increased complexity in the UK's tax system allows people to take advantage of these incentives and this needs to be addressed urgently or others will do this too.

‘Companies House and HMRC need to work more closely and put in place electronic flags and AI systems to make sure this does not happen again.

‘Additionally, as the companies are so small, there is very limited information at Companies House on these companies as they take advantage of the micro-entity accounts regime which means that they produce negligible financial information. Companies House are consulting on abolishing this regime, and this may well be one reasons why they are doing so.’

Others warned employees to check out agencies before signing up for work as they are liable for tax regardless of their work status.

Dave Chaplin, CEO of contracting authority ContractorCalculator, said: ‘These types of dodgy umbrella schemes have been running for years, yet HMRC has been unable to shut them down.

‘Recently we have seen malpractice by umbrellas and agencies who ask contractors to indemnify the entire supply chain against tax loss before using their umbrella in conjunction with a non-disclosure agreement. They might as well say ‘if we don’t pay the taxman properly, you will owe them the money, and by the way, you can’t tell anyone what happened’. And these firms are supposedly their employers.

‘The simplest option if operating inside IR35 is to go on the company or agency payroll. I would urge anyone who uses an umbrella scheme to make sure you understand how they are supposed to work, and don’t work for one unless you do.’

In December 2020, HMRC warned against the potential dangers of MUC fraud, urging businesses to do their due diligence on their supply chains to ensure agencies were conducting their tax affairs properly.

Both G4S and HR GO Recruitment told the BBC investigation that their payments were in line with HMRC requirements.

Blasphemy Laws By Stealth? by Les May

IN Great Britain the common law offence of blasphemy was abolished in May 2008. Which suggest that the recent BBC News headline ‘Batley Grammar School: Blasphemy debate leaves town at crossroads’ is not simply misleading but mischievous. For more than 150 years before that it had been restricted to protecting the "tenets and beliefs of the Church of England". It has not been missed as the last case in which anyone went to jail was in 1922 when John William Gott was sentenced to nine months hard labour for comparing Jesus with a circus clown. There is no record of whether God thought this was necessary.

A late amendment to the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 contained a clause which reads "Nothing in this Part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytising or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system."

The legislation has been attacked by a number of Muslims on the basis that it is too rigidly drawn, and that the scope of the offence of incitement to religious hatred is too narrow. The amendment noted above was inserted after campaigns by religious and secular groups, and comedians and satirists who were concerned that as originally drafted the act to hinder free speech.

In an Australian case brought by the Islamic Council of Victoria citing the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001, which applies to public behaviour not personal beliefs, the outcome was a statement agreed to by both parties which affirmed everyone's rights to "robustly debate religion including the right to criticise the religious belief of another, in a free, open and democratic society".

In a nutshell the actions of the teacher in the Batley Grammar School case were not unlawful in the UK. Had the intension been to vilify Muslims rather than to discuss blasphemy it would have fallen within the scope of the act.

The protests outside Batley Grammar School are an attempt to introduce a new blasphemy law by stealth.

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Myanmar protests: BBC journalist Aung Thura held

BBC: Fri, March 19, 2021, 4:49 PM

A reporter with the BBC Burmese service has been detained in Myanmar as clashes continue between security forces and protesters.

Aung Thura was taken away by men in plain clothes while reporting outside a court in the capital, Nay Pyi Taw.

The BBC said in a statement that it was extremely concerned and called on the authorities to help locate him.

At least eight people are reported to have died in the most recent protests, which took place in several cities.

Aung Thura was taken away with another reporter, Than Htike Aung, who works for the local news organisation Mizzima. Mizzima's operating licence was revoked by the military government earlier this month.

The men who detained the journalists arrived in an unmarked van at around midday local time (05:30 GMT) on Friday and demanded to see them. The BBC has been unable to contact Aung Thura since.

"The BBC takes the safety of all its staff in Myanmar very seriously and we are doing everything we can to find Aung Thura," the corporation said in a statement

.

"We call on the authorities to help locate him and confirm that he is safe. Aung Thura is an accredited BBC journalist with many years of reporting experience covering events in Nay Pyi Taw."

Forty journalists have been arrested since a military coup on 1 February, which saw the detention of elected civilian leaders including Aung San Suu Kyi. Sixteen are still in custody, and the military has revoked the licences of five media companies.

The eight people killed on Friday were shot dead by security forces in the central town of Aungban, according to a funeral director and local media.

"Security forces came to remove barriers but the people resisted and they fired shots," a witness told Reuters news agency.

Reports from Yangon say the streets have been congested as many people try to flee violence in the country's main city. Police there are also said to be forcing people to remove barricades put up by protesters.

Post-coup violence has claimed the lives of at least 232 Burmese, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners activist group says. One of the bloodiest days was 14 March when 38 were killed.

A joint statement by European Union embassies and those of the US and the UK condemned "the brutal violence against unarmed civilians by security forces".

The statement called on the military to lift martial law, release detainees, end the state of emergency and restore democracy.

Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has meanwhile criticised the use of lethal force by the military and called for "a path towards peaceful solutions".

He echoed a call by the Indonesian President, Joko Widodo, for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to hold a summit on the situation in Myanmar.

Myanmar profile Myanmar became independent from Britain in 1948. For much of its modern history, it has been under military rule Restrictions began loosening from 2010 onwards, leading to free elections in 2015 and the installation of a government led by veteran opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi the following year In 2017, Myanmar's army responded to attacks on police by Rohingya militants with a deadly crackdown, driving more than half a million Rohingya Muslims across the border into Bangladesh in what the UN later called a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing"

JOHN CLEESE SLAMS 'COWARDLY BBC'

by Brian Bamford

 Ludwig Wittgenstein said: 'Humour is not a mood but a 

way of looking at the world.'  'So if it is correct to say

that humour was stamped out in Nazi Germany, that 

does not mean that people were not in good spirits, or

anything of that sort, but something much deeper and

more important.'

Perhaps to understand what that 'something' is, it would be best

to look at humour as something strange and incomprehensible. 

For example, the philosopher Wittgenstein enjoyed reading 

  American detective novels and the casual humourous way 

they bumped off their characters. For instance in 

'Rendezvous with Fear' by Norbert Davis desribes a man 

named Garcia cross-eyed with a thin yellowish face sat 

drinking beer the colour and consistency of warm 

vinegar.  Meanwhile, when Doan shoots Bautiste Bonofile, 

another 'bad man', the romantic but naïve heroine, Jane

asks with concern:  'Is he hurt?' 'Not a bit' says Doan, 'he's

just dead.'

****************

JOHN CLEESE has laid into the "cowardly and gutless and contemptible" BBC after an episode of Fawlty Towers was removed from a BBC-owned streaming platform.

A 1975 episode titled The Germans was taken off UKTV's streaming service because it contains "racial slurs".
In it, the Major uses highly offensive language, and Cleese's Basil Fawlty declares "don't mention the war".
Cleese wrote on Twitter: "The BBC is now run by a mixture of marketing people and petty bureaucrats."
He added: "I would have hoped that someone at the BBC would understand that there are two ways of making fun of human behaviour.
"One is to attack it directly. The other is to have someone who is patently a figure of fun, speak up on behalf of that behaviour."

Skip Twitter post by @JohnCleese

I would have hoped that someone at the BBC would understand that there are two ways of making fun of
human behaviour

One is to attack it directly.

The other is to have someone who is patently a figure of fun, speak up on behalf of that behaviour

Thank of Alf Garnett...

— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) June 12, 2020

Report

End of Twitter post by @JohnCleese

He went on to compare the situation with that of Alf Garnett, the racist character in sitcoms Till Death Us Do Part and In Sickness and in Health.
"We laughed at Alf's reactionary views. Thus we discredited them, by laughing at him," Cleese wrote.
"Of course, there were people - very stupid people - who said 'Thank God someone is saying these things at last'. We laughed at these people too. Now they're taking decisions about BBC comedy."
He continued: "But it's not just stupidity. The BBC is now run by a mixture of marketing people and petty bureaucrats. It used to have a large sprinkling of people who'd actually made programmes. Not any more.
"So BBC decisions are made by persons whose main concern is not losing their jobs... That's why they're so cowardly and gutless and contemptible. I rest my case."

'Audience expectations'

UKTV also operates channels including Gold, and many of its channels and its digital player were taken over by the BBC's commercial arm BBC Studios last year. A BBC spokesman declined to comment.
A UKTV spokesman said: "UKTV has temporarily removed an episode of Fawlty Towers The Germans from Gold's Box Set.
"The episode contains racial slurs so we are taking the episode down while we review it. We regularly review older content to ensure it meets audience expectations and are particularly aware of the impact of outdated language.
"Some shows carry warnings and others are edited. We want to take time to consider our options for this episode."

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The British Way

by Les May

MY wife and I are old enough to be considered ‘vulnerable’.  We chose to isolate ourselves from 21 March, which is a few days before the government introduced the ‘lockdown’.  At this moment I have no expectation that we shall ever be able to take up what we thought of as normal life before this; seeing our grandchildren, spending time with our friends, an occasional meal out or a visit to the theatre.

Though I have watched hours of news reports, daily briefings, read innumerable reports and searched the World Wide Web for information, I have been left puzzled by one thing; why did the government allow the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the causative agent of Covid19, to become established in the British population?
Yesterday the BBC Parliament channel repeated a broadcast of a Select Committee hearing of 25 March 2020 which included oral evidence given be Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College.  At the time Ferguson was recovering from a Covid19 infection and it was not always easy to hear clearly what he was saying, but he said, or appeared to say, that the reason attempts to confine the virus and so prevent it becoming established, was a lack of testing and contact tracing capabilities.

At this point someone, and I am not pointing the finger at Ferguson as this was clearly a political decision, shifted the goal away from preventing further deaths to just controlling the spread in such a way as to prevent the capacity of the NHS to deal with cases becoming overloaded, or as it came to be called ‘to flatten the curve’, and accepting the additional deaths which would be the inevitable consequence.

If indeed lack of testing was one of the reasons for abandoning efforts to confine the outbreak then I find this rather strange.   The WHO guidance on contact tracing does not make reference to testing, it seems that a medical diagnosis is sufficient to initiate contact tracing. Ebola was initially recognised in 1976 though no specific test was available for several years. The guidance is given below.
‘People in close contact with someone who is infected with a virus, such as the Ebola virus, are at higher risk of becoming infected themselves, and of potentially further infecting others.
 

Closely watching these contacts after exposure to an infected person will help the contacts to get care and treatment, and will prevent further transmission of the virus. (my emphasis)

This monitoring process is called contact tracing, which can be broken down into 3 basic steps:

Contact identification: Once someone is confirmed as infected with a virus, contacts are identified by asking about the person’s activities and the activities and roles of the people around them since onset of illness. Contacts can be anyone who has been in contact with an infected person: family members, work colleagues, friends, or health care providers.
Contact listing: All persons considered to have contact with the infected person should be listed as contacts. Efforts should be made to identify every listed contact and to inform them of their contact status, what it means, the actions that will follow, and the importance of receiving early care if they develop symptoms. Contacts should also be provided with information about prevention of the disease. In some cases, quarantine or isolation is required for high risk contacts, either at home, or in hospital.
Contact follow-up: Regular follow-up should be conducted with all contacts to monitor for symptoms and test for signs of infection.’
https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/contact-tracing

But having ruled out the labour intensive process of contact tracing and isolation, and moving to the present containment/mitigation strategy it seems likely that at some future date that is precisely what will have to be implemented. This is what Neil Ferguson is quoted as saying on the Imperial College website
‘The challenge that many countries in the world are dealing with is how we move from an initial intensive lockdown… to something that will have societal effects but will allow the economy to restart. That is likely to rely on very large-scale testing and contact tracing.’

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/196477/j-ideas-neil-ferguson-tells-mps-lockdown/

If the government is hoping that the ‘testing’ will be a reliable antibody test it is possible it will have a long wait as this does not seem to be on the horizon at the moment, so we are back to asking why contact tracing cannot follow a medical diagnosis.

https://www.klfm967.co.uk/news/world-news/3085229/coronavirus-no-evidence-that-covid-19-survivors-have-immunity-who-warns/

I have previously commented on the proposal to develop an ‘app’ for use in contact tracing.  Even the USA is recruiting staff involved in census data collection to assist in contact tracing.  Perhaps the UK should do likewise now and not leave it until ‘they get round to it’.

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2020/04/test-isolate-track-and-trace.html

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2020/03/we-have-cunning-plan.html

Rigorously making sure that no potential virus carriers enter the country without being quarantined and tracing and isolating contacts if this fails, would have been costly to the economy because of its effects on trade as well as to our personal freedom to move freely to and from other countries. But are the uncertainties of the present situation really better? 

 

In case you think I am using 20/20 hindsight in constructing my comments I’m not. On 14 March just at the time the UK government was abandoning any attempt to confine the outbreak Martin Hibberd, professor of emerging infectious disease at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, was quoted in The Times (page 7) as expressing concern about government planning that the virus cannot be stopped and instead aiming for a controlled peak in the summer which assumed a large proportion of the population would become infected and recover.

Even before there were any cases in the UK on 25 January the website ‘Technical Politics’ published a long article about Covid19 which ended by saying ‘Our Government needs to be ahead of the game: ahead in its thinking and in its action’ and included the following questions;

Does the Government have a plan to quarantine parts of the UK if there is a localised outbreak?

If the pandemic reaches the UK, where will suspected sufferers be treated? 
 
What facilities will be designate for the treatment of sufferers? 
 
Who will staff those facilities?
What palliative care can be provided prior to the development of a vaccine?
Who needs to go to work, and who can stay at home?
If school is cancelled, will teachers get paid?
How will the supply chain bear up under the circumstances?
What happens if Britain is not able to import that which it does not produce?
What about people working in the private sector?
How will the economy bear up?
Will companies lay off workers and if so, are we ready for an increase in unemployment?
How to make sure that public finances don’t take such a great hit that a debt crisis is caused?
What about the risk of civil unrest?

https://web.archive.org/web/20200222131735/https://www.technicalpolitics.com/articles/too-weak-too-slow-the-uk-governments-dithering-response-to-the-wuhan-coronavirus-increases-the-risk-of-major-loss-of-life/

Whilst I think the government response to this pandemic has been shambolic, contradictory and even duplicitous in so rapidly abandoning attempts to confine and eliminate the virus so that it did not become endemic in the UK now is not the time to hold an inquest because there is still plenty of time for the foolishness of this strategy to become even more apparent.  But I hope that pressure will build for the establishment of an independent and public inquiry into the government’s response including its use and reliance on ‘modelling’.
http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2020/03/we-are-following-science-oh-really.html

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ROYAL MAIL: "profits before safety"

ROYAL Mail is putting "profits before safety" say postal workers, who claim the company is failing to protect them from the risk of catching coronavirus.

There is a shortage of gloves, masks and hand sanitiser, employees from across the UK have told the BBC.

They also claim social distancing at work is "almost impossible".

Royal Mail says it has invested £15m in protective equipment and that the health and well-being of staff is their top priority.

Over the last two weeks, staff at eight Royal Mail sites, including three in Scotland, have walked out over safety concerns.  The BBC has seen footage of employees working shoulder-to-shoulder in one sorting office, with limited social distancing measures in place.

A supervisor based in the north of England said:  "It's more than two weeks since the lockdown and we're in a situation where there is still a lack of PPE [personal protective equipment], there's still a lack of sanitisers, there is still a lack of direction."

He said staff feel as though they are "forced to choose between their jobs and their health".

"I'm scared that my job will be in danger if I refuse to do a task because I believe it puts me in an unsafe position," he added.

https://www.bbc.co.uk › news › business-52243179

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Dealing with the BBC Gestapo!

Free TV licenses, funded by the government, for all over 75's will come to an end in June 2020. From the 1st June, anyone aged 75 or over receiving Pension Credit, will be eligible to apply for a free TV license paid for by the BBC.

In 2015, the government announced that the BBC would take over the costs of providing free TV licenses for the over 75's by 2020 as part of the fee settlement. In 2017, the Conservative prime minister, Theresa May, made an election pledge to preserve pensioner benefits "for the lifetime of this Parliament", due to run util 2022. But the BBC said that the costs of providing free TV licenses for the over 75's, £745 million, amounted to a fifth of the BBC's total budget by 2021/22. The BBC said: "Funding free TV licenses for all over-75's would have resulted in unprecedented closures."According to the BBC, around 900,000 households are claiming Pension Credit but some 1.5 may be eligible but don't claim the benefit. 

Although the Conservative government have reneged on a manifesto commitment to guarantee free TV licenses for the over 75's until 2022, by passing the buck to the BBC to provide them,  the current Conservative prime minister, Boris Johnson, has talked of scrapping the BBC license fee.

From 1st April 2020, the cost of a TV license will increase from £154.50 to £157.50. It is a criminal offence to watch live TV or use BBC iplayer unless you have a valid TV license. You can be prosecuted and issued a fine of up to £1,000 plus court costs. Nineteen people were jailed in 2017, for defaulting on their TV license. The majority of those jailed, were women. A total of 129,446 people were prosecuted for not having a TV license in 2018. TV license enforcement officers also carry out checks at properties, (see above video). One measure that is increasingly being adopted by householders is to serve notice on TV Licensing "Withdrawing Implied Right of Access" to a property and deeming any subsequent approach as harassment.

Heritage Sector & Bigots!

 BLANCMANGE or NEUTRALITY in the Heritage Sector?

NEXT Friday, the 17th, January 2020, Tristram Hunt, the director of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, will begin a series of talks on Radio 4 about Museums in the 21st Century and their relevance.  In the blurb the BBC announces this forthcoming event thus: 

'Museums have never been more popular around the world or faced such sustained criticism. While the Louvre enjoys record-breaking visitor numbers, Abu Dhabi's Saadiyat Island builds a new museum campus for the Middle East and blockbusters from Leonardo to Van Gogh to David Bowie circle the globe, museums are also under challenge. Critics questions historic claims to neutrality, call for the repatriation of colonial-era artefacts and protest over the origins of sponsors' money.'

 https://www.bbc.co.uk › BBC Radio 4 › Curating the Future

In May 2018, the director of the Victoria & Albert Museum, Tristram Hunt, had caused a bit of a stir when he announced: ‘I see the role of the museum not as a political force but as a civic exchange.’  Adding that he ‘was not so sure [that museums] have a duty to be vehicles for social justice’.

On July 5th, 2019, in an article on the Red Pepper website Siobhan McGuirk wrote a passionate piece entitled 'Museums are socially vital precisely because of their political nature' in which it was declared:

"We are in the midst of a momentous self-regarding public debate over what it means to be British. From the shadows of referendum campaigning until now, misrepresentations, half-truths and outright lies have proliferated, recasting the past to demonise the other. The phrase ‘fake news’ has been co-opted to the point of meaninglessness, while flagship media outlets grant platforms to bigots, justified as promoting ‘neutrality’ – as if facts were up for debate, or ‘civic exchange’."

Indeed, Red Pepper's mention of  'flagship media outlets grant platforms to bigots', naturally reminds one of an incident in April 2010 in which the Rochdalian lass,Gillian Duffy, 65, heckled the prime minister [Gordon Brown} as he was interviewed live on TV in Rochdale.  Brown initially ignored her but was then asked by senior aides in his entourage to meet her.

Later the Prime Minister was then famously caught on tape as, unknown to him, the microphone was still turned on:
Brown: 'That was a disaster. Well I just ... should never have put me in with that woman.  Whose idea was that?'

Aide: 'I don't know, I didn't see.....'

Aide: 'What did she say?'

Brown: 'Oh everything, she was just a sort of bigoted woman.  She said she used be Labour. I mean it's just ridiculous.

 'Just a sort of bigoted women'.  Which is precisely the attitude someone on the self righteous left of politics would take, is it not?

Brown then followed with more painfully patronising talk from:

Brown:  'Very good to meet you, and you're wearing the right colour today. Ha, ha, ha: How many grandchildren do you have?'
Duffy:  'Two. They've just got back from Australia where they got stuck for 10 days. They couldn't get back with this ash crisis.'
Brown: 'We've been trying to get people back quickly.  Are they going to university.  Is that the plan?
Duffy: 'I hope so. They're only 12 and 10.'
Brown: 'Are they're doing well at school?  [pats Duffy on the back]  A good family, good to see you. It's very nice to see you.'

How pompous and smarmy can you get?  And is it any wonder that Labour is failing to gel with the northern working class?

Red Pepper itself has previously distinguished itself by finding space to argue the case for 'no platforming' people they don't like or people they may regard as being 'bigots'.  .   

For more on Museums go to: 

BRING BACK KROPOTKIN! - Northern Voices

northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com › 2020/01 › bring-back-kropotkin

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Sauce for the Gander?

by Les May

THE decision by Tony Hall to overturn the decision of the BBC's Executive Complaints unit regarding presenter impartiality may have interesting consequences.  It will be interesting to see what happens when a Palestinian presenter 'calls out' the state of Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu in particular.   I predict questions in Parliament.

*************

The Open Society and its Enemies (Take 2)

by Les May

IN an earlier article I discussed the BBC2 film Conspiracy Files: The Billionaire Global Mastermind.  This film can now be viewed on iPlayer.

If, like me, you are puzzled by the constant claims that Labour and Jeremy Corbyn is anti-semitic, I urge you to view it.

It may cause you to ask why Labour is being targeted in this way when the vicious attacks on Jews and Jewishness in Hungary and Turkey receive no attention media.  The UK is, and I hope will remain, the safest country in Europe for Jewish people.

********************

The Open Society and its Enemies

by Les May

I DID not see all of the BBC2 film Conspiracy Files: The Billionaire Global Mastermind shown at 9pm on Sunday evening.   I came in at the point where a phalanx of white men were shown in a torchlight process chanting what I thought was ‘You’ll never replace the white race’, but which the director, Mike Rudin, says was ‘Jews will not replace us’.

The ‘Global Mastermind’ of the title is George Soros.  His ‘crime’ has been to donate very large sums of money to fund thousands of education, health, human rights and democracy projects through the Open Society Foundations.   For his pains he has had Donald Trump retweet a video that claimed to show cash being handed out to people in Honduras to ‘storm the US border’, with a suggestion that the cash might have come from him, Soros. 

 

When Trump was asked whether Soros was funding the migrant caravan, he replied: ‘I wouldn't be surprised.  A lot of people say yes’.

Rudin claims that the Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has accused Soros of being at the heart of a Jewish conspiracy to ‘divide’ and ‘shatter’ Turkey and other nations.

Viktor Orban Prime Minister of Hungary is quoted as saying ‘We are fighting an enemy that is different from us.  Not open but hiding.  Not straightforward but crafty.  Not honest but unprincipled.  Not national but international.   Does not believe in working but speculates with money.  Does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the whole world’.  In just 8 weeks in 1944 about 400,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered by the Nazis. 
 
However you wrap this up it is anti-semitism; in the first case aimed at Soros because he is Jewish and in the second reviving the sort of thing Adolf Hitler said about Jewish people.

As a committed socialist I see the treatment meted out to Jewish people ‘the canary in the coal mine’.  If they attack them, then they will attack socialists, trade unionists and old fashioned liberals.  This is why I found this film so disturbing.

You can find what is substantially a transcript of the film at;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-49584157

You can find clips at;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008c6g

You can see the whole film at midnight on BBC2 on Thursday 12 September.

What I find truly staggering is that with this going on in the USA, Hungary and in other places in Europe, British Jewish organisations are focusing their attention on attacking the Labour party, and Jeremy Corbyn in particular, as being anti-semitic.   I don’t believe it and I don’t know anyone who supports Labour who does.  And saying so does not make me a Jew hater.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Society_and_Its_Enemies

******************** 

Sauce For The Goose?

by Les May

TRACY Ann Oberman, the actress, has written to the BBC to complain about the appearance of Ash Sarkar, an editor of Novara Media, in the documentary ‘Rise of the Nazis’. The reason Sarkar is included is to illuminate the context and perspective of Ernst Thälmann who led the German Communist party from 1925 to 1933, and died in a concentration camp in 1944. Oberman’s objection was that Sarkar had defended two people who had sprayed ‘Free Gaza and Palestine’ on one of the remaining walls of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Once again we have a complaint about what someone has said, in this case about a third party’s actions; in other words guilt by association.

Would it be legitimate to claim that by objecting Oberman is guilty by association with the policies of Israel, because it is the Israeli state that the graffiti was directed against?

I am not a particular fan of Sarkar, but I don’t think she should be prevented from speaking in BBC programmes just because I don’t always like what she says.

**************** 

An Election? For What?

by Les May

BORIS Johnson’s attempt to force a general election at a time of his choosing may yet backfire. He is presenting it in terms of ‘Let the people decide’. John Pienaar. Deputy Political Editor for BBC News presented it in terms of ‘Brexit or No Brexit, Deal or No Deal’.

But if Pienaar is right and this is what ‘the people’ have to decide about, then why not ask ‘the people’ this question directly in a referendum?

Johnson does not control the news agenda and if other journalists present his endeavours in the same terms as Pienaar then it may not be long before the political parties in favour of a second referendum pick it up and make the connection.

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Hidden in Plain Sight

by Les May

NORTHERN VOICES does not have a ‘party line’ in spite of some people thinking it should adopt theirs.  But there are some discernible themes; a belief in Orwell’s dictum ‘If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear’, a reluctance to spray around like so much confetti words like, nazi, fascist, racist, sexist, anti-semite, islamophobe, homophobe etc and an unwillingness to inflate the importance of Tommy Robinson and his ilk.

Recent events have shown that it is not the streetwise rabble rousers like Robinson that we need to fear will move us along the road to a far right politics. It’s the respectable schemers who have managed to get themselves into 10 Downing Street and are working on ways of keeping themselves there in perpetuity, we should have been keeping a close eye on.

In this context it’s interesting to note the different reasons cited by MPs who have left the Tory party in the recent past and those who have left the Labour party. In a joint letter Heidi Allen, Anna Soubry and Sarah Wollaston described how the leadership had allowed a ‘hard-line anti-EU awkward squad’ to take over the Tory party. In other words their reasons for leaving were political differences about the EU.   In sharp contrast the MPs who have left the Labour party have claimed it to be ‘racist’ and ‘anti-semitic’, two vague and infinitely elastic notions. It seems that the Tory dissenters have been far more aware of where the real danger lies than some who claim to be ‘of the Left’.

During the weeks immediately prior to Johnson sliding into the position of Prime Minister, having first been crowned by Tory party membership,  I watched, three Labour MPs who at different times were contributors to BBC2’s ‘Politics Live’, launch their on attack Johnson by saying he was ‘racist’.  It was the Tory ‘grandee’ Chris Patten, last governor of Hong Kong, who launched his attack on Johnson by saying he as a ‘liar’, before saying a lot of other uncomplimentary about him.

Calling Johnson a racist on the slender evidence of remarks he has made is lazy. We should be able to expect some deeper political insights from our MPs.  One only had to listen to the MPs who are backing him to realise they were single mindedly determined to take the UK on their own terms. And behind them are a few Tory MPs who would not serve in his administration to make sure he does not waver and leave the EU with ‘a deal’.  Is he going to end up as their puppet?

The shape of things to come if Johnson wins the next election can be seen already.   Sajid Javid is said to be unhappy with Johnson’s spending pledges.  After he is safely in Number 10 these could be quietly dropped.  Bullying has become the order of the day.  According to The Times, Dominic Cummings who has been imported as Johnson’s enforcer told a meeting of special advisers, ‘If you don't like how I run things, there's the door. Fuck off.’ Johnson is threatening to withdraw the whip from Tory MPs who do not back him.

If we do end up leaving the EU without a deal and Johnson does win the next election, I hope the Labour MPs who have worked so assiduously to undermine Jeremy Corbyn are proud of themselves.

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Whingeing on Steroids

by Les May

SEXUAL harassment of female performers at the Edinburgh Fringe is a problem, or at least the BBC would have us believe so.  If this was a serious news item whoever put it together might have found a couple of better and more convincing interviewees than we were offered.

The first complained that when she offered a flyer for her show to three young men they said they would only take it if she put her phone number on the back. Shocking isn’t it?

I could have said that she ‘accosted’ three young men out for a stroll down the Royal Mile and tried to press on them an advertising flyer, which would have been an equally correct version of what happened.

The second complained that a gentleman of mature years had approached a police officer about the amount of flesh being shown by her and the other women in her troupe who had built their performance around something to do with the #MeToo ‘movement’.  So that’s alright then.

Seemingly the police officer concluded that the troupes costume, or possibly lack of it, did not transcend the bounds of public decency and sent them on their way.   The complainant said that the actions of the man who approached the policeman amounted to ‘harassment’.

Both these women were whingeing aided and abetted by the BBC. 

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Tory Debates: 'Words have consequences'

Power Politics Smelling Around a Lampost

by Brian Bamford

DURING the Tory leadership debate on the 30th, June, the BBC was accused of bias and the Daily Mail ran an headline: 'BIASED BRAZEN CONTEMPTABLE' and an editorial entitled 'A farrago of deceit and naked BBC bias'.  The editor Geordie Greig wrote:  'One questioner was an imam ('Abdula from Bristol'), who took Mr (Boris) Johnson to task over his use of Islamaphobic language.'  

What the Imam questioner from Bristol asked was did Boris accept that 'words have consequences?'

Boris then admitted that some of his remarks might occasionally have caused some plaster to off the ceiling, but added that people sometimes chose to 'escalate' his comments. 

Ludwig Wittgenstein was once quoted as saying:   'A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.'

Despite Geordie Greig's protestations about BBC bias in the Daily Mail, the Imam was justified in asking his question which was of interest to the public.

more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ludwig_wittgenstein_147252

A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ludwig_wittgenstein_147252

The roots of this question stem from a column in the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper on 5 Aug 2018, in which Johnson wrote that while he doesn’t support a burqa ban in Denmark, he does think they’re 'ridiculous' because they make women look like 'letter boxes' and 'bank robbers.'

But Johnson was also perfectly entitled to describe the effect the asthetic style of the burka had on him:  'If you say that it is weird and bullying to expect women to cover their faces, then I totally agree,' Johnson wrote.  'I would go further and say that it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes.'

Months later in December 2018, Boris Johnson was cleared by an internal Tory Party internal inquiry of breaching the Conservative Party’s code of conduct by comparing veiled Muslim women to letter boxes and bank robbers when an independent panel decided the former foreign secretary was 'respectful and tolerant' and was entitled to use 'satire' in his newspaper column in August.

When I worked at Arrow Mill in Rochdale in the early 1970s, the Pakistani textile spinners there told me that at that time their women-folk wouldn't wear the veil because we natives would laugh at them.  At that time there were less Asian women in the UK, and what shocked most people was that the women usually trialed behind their men-folk when they where out walking in the streets.  It was years later when the fashion of the burka became more commonplace among Muslim women in the UK.

From a logical point of view  'words have consequences' because words are tools to shape meanings in the way a chisel would impact an impression on a piece of wood.  Polemics is the art of throwing eggs or delivering blows in the businesslike manner of a boxer (see Wittgenstein reference above).

In response to this we are told that the critics of Boris will tell us that they are offended and that what Boris writes is a form of 'hate speech'.  Well they may well make this claim as such people often do as they are very vocal.  Yet, others may thus equally respond, as Queen Gertrude did in Shakespeare's play Hamlet:.  'The Lady Doth Protest Too Much, methinks'. 

Most writers on Northern Voices have been clearly committed to libertarian anarchism as rooted in free speech, and question the squeamishness of those who make claims that they are perennially offended by something or other.  The squeamish are now categorised as 'snowflakes'. 

Yet are the squeamish simulating their 'offence' to close down free speech in the way that is available to any human being?  Here we are dealing with something like a private language or the philosophical 'problem of other minds'.  We have words that refer to sensations like being 'offended' or being 'in pain', but we have no way of knowing if these sensations are fake or not.

To throw into relief the possible artful practices of squeamish human 'snowflakes' let us consider what Wittgenstein asks about a dog:

'Why can’t a dog simulate pain? Is he too honest? Could one teach a
dog to simulate pain? Perhaps it is possible to teach him to howl on
particular occasions as if he were in pain, even when he is not. But the
surroundings which are necessary for this behaviour to be real
simulation are missing.'

We can however go further and distinguish between the artful human snowflake and the dog by what Russell B. Goodman writes about in his essay 'Thinking about Animals:  James, Wittgenstein, Hearne': 

'Dogs can be sneaky or deceptive, and that there are stories of
dogs pretending to be injured and doing other clever things. So
perhaps a dog can simulate pain. Would the dog then be dishonest?
Wittgenstein is making a revealing little joke here, based on the
incongruity of saying that dogs either are or are not honest. They
do not have a form of life in which honesty is a major component
in the way that for example, hiding bones and smelling lampposts
are.'

Thus honesty, hypocrisy, sincerity and what could be called human decency, do not form part of the dog's universe.  What could be said about Boris's comments on the Burka and the claim of his alleged Islamophobia is that he is there to entertain and is simply attention seeking when he talks about letter- boxes.  After this week's latest debate with Jeremy Hunt, Eamonn O’Domhnaill, 48, a finance manager from Ireland, was unimpressed with both candidates but said:
'I don’t believe Boris Johnson is taking this seriously - there has been far too much buffoonery.'.

We all know Boris is believed to have favoured remain in the run-up to the referendum.  It is tempting to suggest that there is a certain Fastaffian amorality about his politics which places him closer to Russel B. Goodman's dog smelling round a lamppost as he seeks the Tory leadership..

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