The term 'Fascist' is banded about all the time, but do most people really know what it means?

 

Benito Mussolini

The term 'Fascism' is banded about a lot, but most people, don't really know what it means. The word is derived from the Latin 'fasces' which denotes a bundle of wooden rods surrounding an axe head, which was a symbol of the magistrates' authority in ancient Rome.

Benito Mussolini was the first Fascist dictator and Italy was the first Fascist regime, but Mussolini described Giovanni Gentile, as "the philosopher of Fascism." Mussolini had been a socialist. The Italian Fascist called their regime the 'Corporate State', and Mussolini, claimed that it was founded on the strengths of capitalism and socialism, which he called the "third way." Initially, Italian Fascism was not anti-Semitic and some Jews in Italy were members of The National Fascist Party (PNF). They probably joined the PNF for two reasons: a sense of patriotism or a way of getting on. Fascists don't care much for democracy, civil liberties, or a free press, and they're generally totalitarian regimes and dictatorships.

In both Germany and Italy, Fascism arose when the bourgeoisie (middle-classes), felt their interests were threatened by the working class or proletariat. The same thing happened in Spain in the 1930s. For Fascists, everything is subsumed into the state and everybody is seen as working for the best interests of the state - the motherland or fatherland. The 'leader', is seen to embody the very ideals of the state. Fascism is extremely nationalistic and militaristic, and in both Italy and Germany, trade unions and socialists and communist' parties were crushed. The Italian Fascists didn't murder Jews to begin with, but murdered socialists and communists.

Fascism has been described as a 'capitalist dictatorship' and it is certainly true, that industrialists, the wealthy, and the military, backed Franco, Hitler and Mussolini. Before the outbreak of WWII, the English bourgeoisie, knew that Hitler was on the side of the dividend drawer and hated Bolshevism. Before coming to power in 1933, the German Nazis often used anti-capitalist propaganda when it was politically expedient to do so. 

Franco sent a letter to the British Conservative Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, thanking him for his support during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Britain's official position, was one of neutrality when it came to Spain. Chamberlain's sister-in-law, Lady Chamberlain, was a great fan of Mussolini and an ardent Fascists. Winston Churchill called Mussolini a "Roman Genius" and when he visited Italy in 1927, he told the Italians that had been Italian, he would certainly have been a Fascist. He said that Mussolini and his Fascists had done the world a favour in getting rid of Bolshevism in Italy. In 1923, Benito Mussolini, was given the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, by King George V. This was only withdrawn when Italy declared war on Britain.

Is Andy Burnham planning to depose Sir Keir Starmer-oid?

 

Andy Burnham - Mayor of Greater Manchester

They say that Labour doesn't do regicide, but it's obvious that Keir Starmer can't last because he's hopelessly out of his depth as PM. He always was the default prime minister. He's never been able to establish any connection or rapport with the British public who generally dislike him or find him boring. Starmer and his government, can't even shoot straight.

I'm not sure that Andy Burnham would be any better at the job, even though press reports claim that he's planning to return to Westminster. He can't even keep the buses running in Greater Manchester. This Friday 19th September to 22nd September, there will be no buses running in Greater Manchester because 2000 bus drivers are going on strike over a pay dispute. In Greater Manchester there's now only the Bee Network and TfGM don't employ the drivers. If you can't get a Bee Network bus then you're knackered because there's no other bus service. Sharon Graham and Unite the Union have got us all by the goolies.

No doubt Burnham will say that his hands are tied, but if he can't keep the buses running in Greater Manchester, how can he be expected to keep a country running.

Dickens and Dostoevsky.

 

Charles Dickens & Fyodor Dostoevsky

I have read most of Dostoevsky's major novels twice and though I enjoyed reading them, I don't think they changed my life or had a profound effect on me. Crime and Punishment is a cracking novel and possibly one of the best of all novels.

I once asked a Russian woman if Russian people were like the characters in a Dostoevsky novel. She said are English people like the characters in a Dickens novel. Dostoevsky seemed to believe that the Russian people had a craving for suffering and delighted in their afflictions. In his 'Diary of a Writer', he wrote: "Even in happiness there is in the Russian people and element of suffering; otherwise, felicity to them is incomplete."  

English people aren't really like the characters in a Dickens novel but they are representative of a type of English person that we can often recognise.  I've never met a Mrs Gamp or a Wilkins Micawber, or a Harold Skimpole. They say Dickens modelled many of his characters on family and friends. They have called Dostoyevsky the Russian Dickens, but as an author, Dostoevsky is far more profound. He's more of a psychological writer.

I believe Dickens's novels were very popular in Russia and Dostoevsky wrote: "We, however, understand Dickens when rendered into Russian, almost as well as the English - perhaps, even all the nuances. Moreover, we love him - perhaps not less than his own countrymen. And yet, how typical, original and national is Dickens. What can be derived from this."

I believe that the 1952 film of The Pickwick Papers that was first screened in the Soviet Union in July 1954, was a great success. I have often wondered what the Russians made of that rogue Alfred Jingle and how his words translate into Russian.

Are bus strikes in Greater Manchester likely to become a recurring problem for Andy Burnham?

 

In my entire life I have never known a situation where we had no bus services in Greater Manchester for three or four continuous days. Even when there were bus strikes, which was a rarity, there was always an alternative bus service.

If the bus strike in Greater Manchester goes ahead on the 19th September, it will largely affect people who rely on public transport because they don't drive or have access to a car. It will impact mostly on the elderly, people with disabilities, and those on low incomes. These people will have three options: stay at home for three days, Shanks's pony or get a taxi. You had better make sure you've got plenty of shopping in before next Friday.

How does a situation like this, get people out of cars, and using buses, because they're told it's more environmentally friendly? Only a bloody fool would give up their car to use public transport as bad as this in Labour controlled Greater Manchester. We're now in a situation where bus services in Greater Manchester, are under public control, but Andy Burnham and TfGM don't have any control over the bus drivers or their pay and conditions because they don't employ the drivers who are employed by private bus companies like First and Stagecoach.

I don't blame the drivers for trying to get an increase in their pay because they know they're in a powerful position, because there's now only one bus service in Greater Manchester and that is the Bee Network. If you can't get a Bee Network bus you're fucked. Sharon Graham and Unite the Union know they've got us all by the bollocks, so I am amazed that this dispute over pay, hasn't been settled long ago. The bus operators will probably use this situation as leverage to squeeze more money out of TfGM.

Bus strikes are likely to be a recurring problem for Andy Burnham and TfGM. No doubt Burnham will tell us that his hands are tied and there's little he can do under the circumstances. But if he can't keep the buses on the road, how can he expect to run a country when he replaces Keir Starmer as the Leader of the Labour Party and becomes the next British prime minister?

What is the social cement that holds society together?

 

The Scottish philosopher, David Hume, pondered why the many can be governed so easily by the few and concluded that both force and opinion, play a role.

The Irish philosopher, Edmund Burke, who is seen as the father of modern-day conservatism, thought it was the 'little platoons' - families, communities, and local institutions - that were the foundations of society and which maintained social order and cohesion. The English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, talked about a theoretical condition called the "state of nature", which existed before government, where human life was a "war of all against all" which was characterized by fear, constant conflict, and a lack of morality, industry and society.

If this is the case, how did the native Americans live without a government or the aboriginal people of Australia? They lived in a state of nature for tens of thousands of years but they had their own rules, customs, and traditions. They were self-governing autonomous tribes that practiced mutual aid and co-operation. Is this what they call anarchy? There may have been conflict between tribes at times, over competition for natural resources, but those conflicts weren't anything like the two world wars of the 20th century. There was also a great deal of co-operation because in the long-run, it is in nobody's interest to be in a constant state of war. 

I believe that the Indian Chief Sitting Bull, came to England in 1887, as part of Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. In London, he was shocked to see the number of people begging in the streets. He couldn't quite understand why these people were going hungry when the shops were full of food. He said his own tribe did experience privation at times, but they shared what they had among the tribal members so that nobody went hungry.

I was never impressed with this Thatcherite idea of rugged individualism where we are all seen as competitive individuals pursuing our own greed and self-interests. Society works as well as it does because we're not really like that. If we were, we wouldn't have lifeboat crews or listening volunteers at the Samaritans. A society that is made up of an aggregate of self-interested egoists, is no society at all. 

Bee Network bus drivers to strike for three days from 19 September.

 

Andy Burnham

The Bee Network in Greater Manchester seems to be beleaguered with problems.

Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester promised the people of Greater Manchester a London-style bus network. We've seen buses crashing into one another or crashing into bridges. Only recently upstairs passengers on a double decker bus in Eccles, were nearly decapitated, when the driver tried to get under a bridge that wasn't high enough. Passengers in Greater Manchester now face the prospect of no buses from Friday 19 September to Monday 22 September in a coordinated strike over pay, when two thousand drivers will walk out.

This action will obviously have most impact on people who don't drive or own a car and rely on public transport to get about.  All the drivers are members of Unite the Union. Although the Bee Network has been brought back under local authority control, it doesn't employ the drivers or negotiate their wages. Many of these drivers will be employed by First or Stagecoach. As most of the buses are now part of the Bee Network, Burnham has created a monopoly which means that alternative public bus transport will be severely limited or not available to the general public.

Rayner admits to not paying enough stamp duty on luxury Brighton seaside flat.

 

Angela Rayner - UK Deputy Prime Minister

When I read Angela Rayner's public statement, I almost felt like crying. Angie was cynically accused of having removed her name from the deeds of her four-bedroom property in Ashton-under-Lyne in order to avoid paying £40,000 stamp duty (Tax) on another property in Hove, Brighton. She bought the house in Ashton with her former husband in 2016 for £375,000, when she became the MP for Ashton-under-Lyne. The property is now said to have a value of £650,000.

In May 2024, Rayner was accused in the press of having failed to pay capital gains tax for the sale of her former council house and of having wrongly declared her permanent address on the electoral register. She was cleared on both counts. Both Rayner and her former husband, Mark Rayner, a trade union official, had sold their former council houses in Stockport. These properties had been acquired under the 'Right-to-Buy' scheme. Rayner had maintained that her property in Ashton was her primary residence, and saved £2,000 in council tax on another property in London. She's now admitted to not paying enough stamp duty on the £800,000 luxury seaside flat in Hove, Brighton, but says this was done in error because she was incorrectly advised when she and her former husband put the family home in a trust, for their son who has disabilities and for her other children. In short, it's not her fault but the fault of someone else.

The problems seem to arise because Ms Rayner currently as three residences. When it comes to her constituents and her local Tameside Council, her primary residence is said to be in Ashton, but her local neighbours' say that they never see her. When it comes to saving £40,000 in stamp duty, her primary residence is said to be a flat in Hove, because she told the tax authorities this wasn't a second home but her primary residence. Her third home is a rent free 'grace and favour' apartment in Admiralty House, that was once the London home of Winston Churchill. This is now her primary residence when she's in London. She moved there when she gave up her rented property in London. Rayner has now referred herself to the watchdog on parliamentary standards and according to press reports, is under investigation by HMRC.

Boris Johnson says UK police arrest over 10,000 people a year for online comments.

 

"The UK police are now making over 10,000 arrests every year for online comments, more than the police in Russia itself, and this judgement is yet another propaganda gift for Vladimir Putin." (Boris Johnson - The Daily Telegraph, 21 May 2025). Johnson warned that Britain is becoming a 'police state' under Sir Keir Starmer.

I don't know where Boris Johnson got these statistics from, but if these figures are correct, then it does suggest that the British police like the East German Stasi, are spending a great deal of time monitoring the views that British citizens make on social media.

This seems to be clear in the case of Graham Linehan, the co-writer of the comedy series 'Father Ted'. He was arrested by British police when he flew from America to Heathrow Airport. The police told Linehan that he was being arrested for tweets that he'd made on the social media site X.

The Labour Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, says that we have free speech in Britain, but this hardly seems to bear scrutiny. Even the Trump administration in the U.S. have expressed concerns about the crackdown on free speech in Britain.

When expressing moral concerns about genocide in Gaza is considered ‘intent’ and can get you arrested and imprisoned by the British thought police, then we ought to be seriously worried. Are British citizens going stand for being treated like "thought criminals" who are arrested for "thought crime"? As George Orwell said, "If  liberty  means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear."

Kemi Badenoch and social class.

 

Kemi Badenoch

As soon as the Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, opens her mouth, any working-class person would know that she's not of the English working-class, regardless of her colour. She speaks with a middle-class accent.

We don't talk about 'siblings' or 'social capital' even though I'm well aware of what they mean. I also doubt that many black people could identify with Kemi Badenoch, including Nigerians. Kemi really walks in a no man's land, and is not really one thing or the other. Some black people might consider her a 'coconut' - black on the outside and white on the inside.

Badenoch defines social class in terms of a person's occupation, but I think it means much more than that. Not all British working-class people are class conscious but many are. A British Social Attitude Survey carried out in September 2023, found that 52% of respondents identified as working-class, little different from the 58%, who did so in 1983. Nearly half, (46%), of those who identify as working-class, are employed in middle-class jobs. Some 77% of people in this survey, said that social class affects someone's opportunities in Britain and people are more likely today, than twenty years ago, to believe that it's more difficult to move from one social class to another.

In his essay, 'The Lion and the Unicorn', George Orwell, said that England was the most class-ridden country under the Sun. It's also one of the most inegalitarian countries. It still remains a country where property and financial power are concentrated in very few hands, even though its politicians talk a lot about equality, diversity and inclusion.

Gordon Reece, who was a political adviser to Margaret Thatcher, once told her that the type of people who were likely to vote for her, were people who listed to Jimmy Young on Radio 2, watched Top of the Pops and Jim I'll Fix It, and didn't read the broadsheet newspapers or watch in-depth late night news programmes. He told her that they weren't really much interested in politics at all, but if she wanted to become the next UK Prime Minister, she had better reach out and grab them.

Culturally, I don't think there's much difference between the Sun or the Daily Mail reader, but the former are probably less likely to be riddled with angst and insecurity and are more optimistic in outlook. Both are more likely to listen to Classic FM rather than Radio 3 and watch the Eurovision Song Contest. 

Sir Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff Engulfed in £6 Million Migrant Scandal

 

Morgan McSweeney

Morgan McSweeney's parents have been paid £6 million by the Irish government for housing asylum seekers. The company 'Togail Veil Glas Teoranta' (Limited green veil lifting), is registered at the same address as his father's accountancy firm and is part of a complex web of shell companies stretching to Cyprus. Tim McSweeney and his wife Carmel, are the only listed directors.

Morgan McSweeney, is the Downing Street Chief of Staff under Starmer's Labour government. Morgan McSweeney’s first cousin, Clare Mungovan, is a special advisor and lead policy advisor, to the Irish minister, Simon Harris.

Working-class mutual aid and solidarity.

 

In December 2024, around 37% of Universal Credit claimants were in employment. They are on U.C. because their wages are so low.

The early English workers did combine to form trade unions, but they didn't look on the state as some kind of fairy godmother. Unlike today, they were unlikely to ask 'what is the government going to do about it'? They formed friendly societies to protect themselves against sickness and unemployment, cooperative societies, and mechanics' institutes and reading clubs.

The National Union of Miners (NUM), built miners' institutes and recreation centres as well as convalescent homes. They also provided bursaries for miners undergoing education courses. A group of Northumberland miners in Ashington, formed an art appreciation group in 1934 and became known as "The Pitmen Painters." Mutual aid and solidarity were a feature of working-class life and communities in Victorian Britain. Many middle-class observers commented on this. 

Labour sinks to its lowest approval rating under Starmer-oid.

 

Sir Keir Starmer

Labour may have sunk to its lowest approval rating under Sir Keir Starmer-oid but I'm still amazed that the party has a 20 percent approval rating.

Labour is past its sell-by date and Starmer-oid is likely to finish it off. Unemployment is rising under Labour and people are struggling with the cost of living in Britain. Labour promised to make people better off if they got in government, but many are now worse off. They also promised to grow the British economy but they haven't got much of a clue about how to do that.

Starmer-oid is the master of the U-turn. He can turn on a dime and can break any pledge or promise that he makes. I can't see him lasting five years as Prime Minister or as the leader of the Labour Party. The man is a dummy and completely out of his depth. Starmer-oid has never managed to establish any rapport with the British public. If he shows his face in public he's verbally abused and vilified. Starmer is the best recruiting sergeant that Reform UK have got. The longer Starmer-oid is around, the more likely it is, that we will see Nigel Farage in Downing Street.

More collisions at Bee Network.

 

WTF is going wrong with Andy Burnham's Bee Network? Not many weeks ago, upstairs passengers on a double decker bus in Eccles, were nearly decapitated when a driver tried to go under an 11' 6" bridge driving a 14' 6" bus. I gather that he wasn't even on the correct route.

We've now got buses crashing into one another. Do these drivers know what they're doing? Several weeks ago, I got on a Stockport to Ashton Bee Network bus and nearly finished up at the top of Moseley Road. Most of the passengers sat their speechless. I was the only one who got up to speak to the bus driver who admitted that he didn't know where he was going. I had to give him directions to the Ashton interchange.

I'm sure that many passengers feel that they're taking their lives in their own hands when the board a Bee Network bus. It's beginning to resemble something like stock car racing.

Victor Klemperer - "I Will Bear Witness."

 

Victor Klemperer

Not all Germans, liked Adolf Hitler or hated Jews. I've just been reading about Victor Klemperer, the cousin of the conductor Otto Klemperer. 

Victor Klemperer lived in Dresden during the war. He was married to a Protestant and his family, who had been Jewish, had converted to Protestantism. He did believe that his conversion, marriage, and his war record, would give him a degree of immunity under the Nazis. This was not to be. He was banned from teaching, publishing, travelling and owning a car. He had to wear a yellow star and he and his wife, like all Jews, were banned from owning cats and dogs. The Nazis had decreed that all domestic pets should live only in "pure Aryan homes." They had to put their beloved tomcat, Muschel, to sleep by anaesthetic. Klemperer was even told that he could no longer make donations to the fund for the prevention of cruelty to German cats. 

In his published diaries, he describes what it was like to live in Germany under Hitler and the Nazi regime. He calls Theodor Herzl, the Jewish founder of the Zionist movement, "a mirror image race theorist and nationalist." Klemperer had an abiding distrust of Zionism and remained a liberal German. In his diaries he cites numerous acts of random or planned solidarity and generosity shown towards him. Cuts of meat and fish are offered to him in rationed stores. Tram drivers abuse the Fuhrer for his benefit. A worker passes by and says: "Chin up - the scoundrels will soon be finished " Klemperer also mentions the exemplary behaviour of German communists and socialists. 

Ironically, it was the allied bombing of Dresden that turned out to be the salvation for Victor Klemperer and his wife. They had already heard that all Jews were to be rounded up and deported to the camps. Amid all the chaos after the bombing of Dresden, Klemperer and his wife, removed their yellow stars and just walked away from Dresden. 

Lucy Connolly to sue police!

 

Lucy Connolly portrayed herself as a thug and now portrays herself as "Starmer's police prisoner." She knew that her comments were likely to backfire on her and that's why she later deleted them. She pleaded guilty to inciting racial hatred online.  I believe she did child minding and she said that if Ofsted contacted her, she would say that she hadn't written the comment but had been 'doxed'. She also said that she would play the mental health card.

However, I do think a sentence of 30 months' imprisonment for this offence was OTT and it has implications for free speech. If you read her comment, it is a moot point as to whether she did really incite racial hatred, but she did plead guilty to that offence. Many other people were also imprisoned for making online comments after the Southport attack but the right-wing press don't seem to have taken up their cases because they're not married to Tory councillors.

Three children tragically died that day and it is no wonder that people became angry about it. Many believed that the attacker was a Muslim and an asylum seeker. He was neither.

Is the UK education system a racket for the middle-classes?

 

Not very long ago, I got into a conversation with a young Asian lad in my local library. He told me that he was a pupil at Stockport Grammar School, which I understand is a fee-paying independent school. He told me that he was at the school on a scholarship which greatly impressed me. I said to him that he'd obviously secured a place at the school on his wits and abilities and not on his parents' ability to pay the fees.

I knew one young girl who was the daughter of a friend, who attended Oldham Hulme Grammar School. She told her father that many of her contemporaries struggled with the academic work and were only at the school because their parents could afford the fees. She thought many of them weren't really grammar school material at all. Her father told me that this was probably correct but the school needed the money. I then said to him but what if you're an intelligent child and your parents can't afford the fees? He said to me, that if that was the case, you shouldn't apply in the first place. I thought this a strange comment coming from a man who professed to believe in something called the 'meritocracy', which I think is a complete fallacy.

The comprehensive system of education was a failed attempt to introduce a form of egalitarianism into the British state education system and to increase social mobility. Many middle-class parents are prepared to sell their homes and to relocate to other areas where there are better performing schools for their children. This not only drives up house prices but increases demand for school places in better state schools and limits access to less affluent families.

Bridget Philipson, Labour's education minister, said recently that the state education system had failed "white working-class children", but I've been  hearing this for most of my life. When I was at primary school, we all seemed to know which of our contemporaries  were likely to go to the grammar school. Yet, if you read 'The Uses of Literacy' by Richard Hoggart, it is clear that for some working-class children from poor backgrounds, like Hoggart, selection by the 11+ examination and education grants, did lead to upward social mobility.

A man that I know who was at primary school with me in the early 1960s, said to me only recently, that if your father wore overalls, you weren't going anywhere in those days. I would caution anyone against being too fatalistic. I think we should always use our best endeavours, but he obviously saw the education system has one huge con-trick and a racket for the middle-classes. He might well have a point. A student that I met at Manchester University, who was from Wakefield, once said to me that he'd been there a week and that I was the first person that he'd spoken to who had a northern accent. I know of one female student who spoke with a Geordie accent, who was interviewed for a place at Oxford University, and was asked what made someone like her think she could come to place like this. I was told of another female student that attended an interview at Oxford, who was asked how many bedrooms her father's house had.

Abraham Lincoln's tribute to the "working men of Manchester" who opposed slavery.

 

The English novelist Charles Dickens said the American Civil War was about dollars and cents. Dickens didn't like slavery, yet he almost came close to supporting the Confederate side during the American Civil War.

The Republican, Abraham Lincoln, was not a supporter of the abolitionist, John Brown, and the Democrats, were then unashamed advocates of the extension of slavery. The idea of secession or separation first arose among abolitionists who were confronted with Confederates who wanted to extend their chattel system, into new territories, thus implicating the entire Union in their system. The Fugitive Slave Act, legalized the recovery of human property from 'free' states. Almost all whites during that period feared most black people and many black slaves were not sympathetic to anti-slavery organizations, that wanted to free them and then deport them to Africa. The Confederacy had opened hostilities on the avowed basis of upholding slavery, which meant in turn, that the Union would be forced to tackle negro emancipation whether its leadership wanted to or not.

Many English textile workers, particularly in Lancashire, did support the boycott of cotton from the Southern States of the U.S. during the American Civil War. This support was driven by a strong anti-slavery sentiment and a belief that ending slavery was more important than the economic hardship caused by the boycott. Karl Marx, helped to organise a boycott of southern slave-picked cotton among British workers.

The Times newspaper had hoped for the defeat of Abraham Lincoln and the wreckage of the American experiment. The Economist newspaper wrote: "The assumption that the quarrel between North and South is a quarrel between Negro Freedom on the one side and Negro Slavery on the other, is as impudent as it is untrue."

In 1863, the U.S. President wrote to the "working men of Manchester" thanking them for their anti-slavery stance. Lincoln's words were later inscribed on the pedestal of his statue that can still be found in Lincoln Square, Manchester. Lincoln praised the workers for their selfless act of "sublime Christian heroism, which has not been surpassed in any age or in any country." 

Nietzsche and Fascism.

 

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, has been called the "godfather of fascism" but he wasn't into German nationalism or nationalism in general, and he certainly wasn't an anti-Semite. He proposed marriage to Lou Salome, a Russian-born Jewess. He also embraced cosmopolitanism. I believe that it was his friendship with Jewish people that led to the break-up of his friendship with Richard Wagner and his wife. It was his sister and her husband, Bernhard Forster, who were the anti-Semites. I believe Nietzsche refused to attend their marriage. It is largely because of his sister (Elizabeth), that Nietzsche's name is associated with the Nazis.

As a philosopher, Nietzsche is elitist and anti-democratic. He believed that morality came from the herd instinct of the individual. He wrote: "Morality is just fiction used by the herd of inferior human beings to hold back the few superior individuals." He saw the vast majority of people as the "bungled and botched", and he didn't think much of mass politics or the big state. To Nietzsche democracy or fascism would have been the politics of the mob. Neither did he think much of socialism which he called the "tyranny of the meanest and dumbest." He said it attracted inferior people who are motivated by resentment.

The philosopher Bertrand Russell, wrote: "What Caesar Borgia was to Machiavelli, Napoleon was to Nietzsche: a great man defeated by petty opponents."

Peterloo, democracy and free speech.

 

Peterloo Massacre

I remember attending a meeting in Manchester shortly before the two hundredth anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester in August 1819. There were some people at the meeting who didn't want to give the then Labour MP, Chris Williamson, a platform and the right to speak at the Peterloo event in Manchester in August 2019. Williamson had been suspended by the Labour Party for comments that he had made. The meeting agreed to invite Chris Williamson and the North West TUC then withdrew their support for the Peterloo event.

What those people were fighting for at Peterloo, was to have a democratic voice and the vote for men of a certain age. If democracy means anything then it means the right to be able to protest and the right to exercise free speech. The workers at Peterloo were denied this and some were killed and many injured fighting for this. The Peterloo Massacre was class war.

Although Chris Williamson got to speak at that the bicentennial event, there were some people in the labour movement, including some of the organisers of this event, who wanted to no platform him, and they could see no inconsistency in doing so, and supporting this commemorative Peterloo event.

Trump's crackdown on migrant workers is starting to effect U.S. businesses and driving up prices.

 

California's economy and in other parts of the U.S., is so dependent on migrant labour that the crackdown by Donald Trump on migrant workers, is starting to affect many businesses and raising retail prices in the supermarkets.

There are an estimated 7 million workers who are undocumented in the U.S. labour force. Undocumented workers make up 25% of all farm workers in the U.S. and many of them are Mexicans. Many of these migrant workers work in construction, domestic work, hospitality, agriculture, meat processing and the care sectors. Raids by U.S. immigration officials have led to many migrant workers failing to turn up for work and putting businesses at risk. The Trump administration say that they are targeting illegal (undocumented) migrant workers who do not have a legal right to be in the country, rather than documented migrant workers, who do. They also say they are targeting criminals. Yet, it seems, that undocumented migrant workers are paying local, state and federal taxes while in employment, so how can they be undocumented?

It's also clear that many U.S. employers openly employ illegal migrants and that this demand for migrant labour is what drives immigrants to come to the U.S. Many of these migrant workers basically do the back breaking jobs that many Americans are often unwilling to do because it's hard graft. Many businesses like farms, hotels and restaurants, are now pressing Donald Trump to exempt their businesses from immigration raids.

Is Starmer leading Labour into the electoral abyss?

 

Sir Keir Starmer

In my lifetime I have never known a British politician as unpopular as Keir Starmer. If he appears in public he's subjected to verbal abuse. Starmer is the default Prime Minister. Labour only got elected because the voters lost confidence in the Conservatives. Starmer is a rather boring man who doesn't seem to have much of a clue about how to get the country up and running. When he gives interviews, he appears shifty and awkward and doesn't seem to be able to establish any kind of rapport with the British public. 

I would not trust a man who says that 99.9 per cent of women don't have a penis and is a committed Zionist. Politically, his Labour government make colossal blunders like taking the winter fuel allowance off pensioners and cutting benefits for people with disabilities. Why was this not mentioned when Labour was in opposition?  Starmer had to do a U-turn on this because they were losing council seats to reform UK and facing opposition from some Labour backbenchers. Yet Labour have said that those with the broadest shoulders should bear the biggest burden of taxation, so, why are they hitting pensioners and people on benefits and not the rich? They're now confiscating people's allotments to allow councils to sell off the land.

Starmer can turn on a dime and will break any pledge or promise that he makes. In opposition he promised to clean up politics but takes freebies for clothing and gear for himself and his wife off a gay multi-millionaire called Lord Waheed Ali. Even though Labour has a massive majority I can't see Starmer lasting five years. Starmer is the best recruiting sergeant that Reform UK have got. I think Starmer will lead Labour into the electoral abyss and put Nigel Farage into Downing Street.

Is there any value in a university education? Discuss.

 

People have always harboured doubts about the value of a university education. I'm pretty sure that Henry David Thoreau said that a degree from Harvard College wasn't worth a five-dollar bill.

I have just been reading 'Barnaby Rudge' by Charles Dickens which is about the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots in London in 1780. Young Edward (Ned Chester), a character in the book, says to his father, "I have been, as the phrase is, liberally educated and am fit for nothing..." Yet, that didn't stop Dickens, sending his eldest son Charlie, to Eton College. In those days you went to university to be turned into a gentleman and you would probably study the classics and read ancient Greek and Latin, both dead languages. After university many graduates went into the church or the army. Many classic scholars went on to run the country and became British Prime Ministers.

Part of the problem, I think, arises from this utilitarian point of view that sees a university education as being of no value, if it doesn't lead to a well-paid job. Cardinal Newman, seemed to think that education had value as an entity in itself, and I would tend to agree with that position.

I remember a conversation I had with a friend of mine in the early 1980s. He told me that on the train from Oxford, he had got into a conversation with a young lad who had a multi-coloured Mohican hairstyle. It turned out that he was a student at Oriel College Oxford and was studying English literature. My college friend asked him what practical value there was in a degree in English literature. The young punk replied that there was no practical value in it whatsoever, but "one did get to read some jolly good books." I simply laughed and said to my friend, that I thought it was better doing that than working in a pickle factory.

 If the only intellectual concept you've got in your armoury is a hammer, then I suspect that everything in the world is going to resemble a nail to you. Is education really about teaching somebody how to knock a nail into plank of wood even if it leads to a job? I suspect that most of the MPs in the British House of Commons today, if they're not qualified lawyers, are probably arts graduates with "Micky Mouse" degrees. 

Ronny Kray's gun license goes up for auction.

 

Britain now has the strictest and most complicated gun laws in the world but this wasn't always the case. Gun deaths in Britain have always been fairly rare.

In Liberal Victorian England, gun laws were almost non-existent. You could buy a gun by mail order and carry a gun without much difficulty. Gun deaths were almost unheard of and many Victorians carried concealed weapons. There were also many shouting galleries that the public could attend.

As a young lad growing up in Britain in the 1950s and 60's, I remember shooting .22 rim fire cartridges at public fairgrounds and most of us had air rifles.

In May 1964, the gangster Ronnie Kray, was issued with a gun license for 10 shillings. The license issued by the police entitled him "to carry and use a gun." It was a 9mm Luger pistol that he used to shoot George Cornell dead in the Blind Beggar Pub, Mile End, East London, on 9 March 1966. Kray's gun license is now up for auction and is expected to fetch thousands.

Nicola Sturgeon - "Stalin's wee sister."

 

Nicola Sturgeon

Asked by a female intellectual to summarize the difference between a man and woman, a bishop replied, "Madam, I can't possibly conceive." How could the Scottish voter have confidence in a politician that couldn't distinguish a man from a woman?  

I remember watching Nicola Sturgeon when she was the leader of the SNP, wriggling about like a maggot on a fish hook, when she was asked in an interview, whether the trans double rapist Isla Bryson, born Adam Graham, was a man or woman. What a ghastly spectacle it was. She got herself all tangled up in knots.  Graham/Bryson was demanding to be admitted to a woman's prison. 

Nicola Sturgeon is a politically correct dipstick. I recall that the former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars, saying that the SNP shouldn't just reflect on the SNP's collapse in support but repent. Sillars said that the SNP had spent far too much time on fringe and exotic issues like transgenderism and should have spent more time focused on bread-and-butter issues that matter the most to Scottish voters. He described Sturgeon as "Stalin's wee sister."

There's no doubt about it that Sturgeon's obsession with Trans rights has led to the SNP losing massive support and to Sturgeon becoming politically irrelevant. 

"Let's Go To The Beach" - Stalybridge Civic Hall 19 August.

 

I have never heard anything more ridiculous. The people of Stalybridge can "enjoy their own seaside experience" later this month when the civic hall will be turned into a mock pleasure beach with sand and treasure hunts. This building was once Stalybridge market hall and look at it now - a ghostly empty space.

Labour have controlled Tameside Council for over 40 years. There are now no banks in Stalybridge because they've all been closed and there are no public toilets. Even the fictional French village of Clochemerle, had one public toilet. There's no cinema, no shoe shops, clothing shops, no Town Hall, no furniture shops, no police station, but plenty of betting and charity shops.

Yesterday, there was another 'Street Fest' in Stalybridge. I don't think you can buy anything at that Street Fest for less than £8 or £9, it's a total rip off. Not very long ago they had the Halle Orchestra doing rehearsals in the old market hall in Stalybridge and it attracted quite a lot of people even though I don't remember it being advertised.

We need more of that in Tameside. Brass bands are now very popular and band concerts could be staged in the old market hall in Stalybridge along with other types of live music.

Pro-Palestinian activist accused of profiting from the extermination of Jews.

 

Marlene Engelhorn

The journalist Brendan O'Neill, once wrote for the magazine 'Living Marxism' (LM), that closed after being sued by ITN over a report written about the war in Bosnia. LM magazine which was the set up by members of the cultish Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), denied that genocide had taken place in Rwanda and Bosnia. After LM magazine closed, members of the group set up 'Spiked Online'. Spiked Online is generally pro-Israel, pro-Brexit and anti-climate change.

The U.N. stated recently that 1000 people in Gaza had been shot in the last two months by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), when they had tried to access food aid. Around 60,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the attack on Israel by members of Hamas on 7 October 2023, including many innocent women and children. We've also seen horrific photographs of starving and emaciated Palestinian children in Gaza. Although the International Criminal Court (ICC), have issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Spiked Online denies that genocide is taking place in Gaza.

In this article by Brendan O'Neill, he dismisses this as 'Israelophobia’. This article mainly attacks a pro-Palestinian Austrian activist called Marlene Engelhorn, who is disparagingly called the "Zyklon B Heiress." O'Neill tells us that Ms Engelhorn had inherited money ($27.1 million) from the family coffers that had been acquired partly through the production of Zyklon B gas that was used to gas Jews in the death camps during WWII. What O'Neill doesn't tell us, is that Ms Engelhorn seems to have given most of this money away. She has also campaigned for the Austrian government to increase taxes on the wealthy. Brendan O'Neill says that her family profited from the extermination of the Jewish people and finds it odd that now, "she rages against the Jewish state."

I can't see how Ms Engelhorn is anymore responsible for the extermination of European Jews than is the daughter of Amon Goth, who ran the death camp in the film Schindler's List. Many people profited from that war including English investors who had money invested with the German arms manufacturer Krupp. Ms Engelhorn is a descendant of Friedrich Engelhorn who founded the German chemicals giant BASF. In the 1920s, BASF merged with IG Farben that produced Zyklon B, which I believe was originally intended to be used for agricultural purposes as a pesticide.  

There were that many Jewish directors on the board of IG Farben that the Nazis called the firm the citadel of Jewish capitalism, but this didn't stop the Nazis doing business with the firm or the firm doing business with them. At the end of the war, some of the directors of IG Farben were put on trial at Nuremberg for war crimes.

Trevor Morris reveals secret service smear campaigns.

Box (MI5), likes to portray itself as being mainly involved in counter espionage and doesn't like to talk about how it spies on British citizens who they deem 'subversive' or now, 'domestic extremists' which isn't defined in law. F Section of MI5, spied on some British citizens who were in organisations like CND or the trade unions. These organisations were not illegal or proscribed organisations.

When the former black spy cop, Trevor Morris, who spied on the Lawrence family, gave live testimony at the Mitting Inquiry (see video) into undercover policing, he was asked if he had been tasked with smearing the Lawrence family. He said he'd been tasked by the Met to gather intelligence on the family and that the smearing was done by MI5. He then said that he shouldn't have said that and asked for that comment to be retracted from the record. Then someone pulled the plug on the live streaming.

If MI5 were spying on the Lawrence family in what way were the family a threat to the security of the state? Doreen Lawrence was given and accepted a peerage.

Irish Republicanism & the Germans.

 

The Irish nationalist and Protestant, Roger Casement, accepted a knighthood from the British for his humanitarian work. He exposed the atrocities that were taking place in the Congo that was colonized by the Belgians. Casement was hanged for treason because he collaborated with the Germans during WWI. While in custody, Casement offered to use his influence to get the planned Easter Rising called off. The British authorities declined his offer and let the 1916 Easter Rising take place. I think they saw it as an opportunity to lance the boil.

When the Rising took place, Home Rule for Ireland was already on the cards and James Connolly, a Scottish-born Irish Republican, who was one of the leaders of the Rising, knew that they were going out to be slaughtered. Connolly, who had something of a martyr complex, took his fourteen-year-son, Roddy, with him. Most of the people in Dublin hardly understood what the Rising was about and neither were they sympathetic to the rebels. The 'Allowance Women', who had husbands serving with the British army couldn't draw their allowance because the post office had been occupied by the rebels. Many of the people who got killed during the Rising were innocent Dubliners who got caught in the crossfire or were killed by English artillery.

In WWII, Sean Russell, the IRA chief of staff collaborated with the Nazis and so did the IRA man Frank Ryan, who fought with the International Brigades in Spain. The IRA leader foolishly believed that if the Nazis won the war, Hitler would have given Ireland its independence. I don't think that either Frank Ryan or Sean Russell were sympathetic to the Nazis, but they seemed to have thought that England's enemies were Ireland's friend. I suspect that if Germany had won the war, somebody like the fascist Blackshirt, Oswald Mosley, or William Joyce, aka Lord Haw-Haw, would have been put in charge of running Ireland for the Nazis. As for the IRA men like Sean Russell, they would have been sent to the concentration camps.

Eamon de Valera who took part in the Rising but wasn't executed, would later imprison and hang some members of the IRA when he got into political office. Some IRA men died on hunger strike while imprisoned by de Valera's government. On hearing of Hitler's death, Eamon de Valera sent condolences to what was left of the German government. 

Who coined the name Staly Vegas?

 

Armentiers Square Stalybridge

Stalybridge is just about recognisable as a little cotton town and it still retains some of its character. Unfortunately, the town possesses no public urinals now or banks, which have all been closed. It does however, have many charity shops and betting shops. The town is referred to in Benjamin Disraeli's novel 'Coningsby', as being a place of "high pressure" due to its industries.

I remember when they filmed Yanks in Stalybridge. All they had to do was put a few sand bags outside some of the buildings and you felt like you were back in the 1940s. I don't know who coined the name Staly-Vegas but I'm glad to see the back of it.

If J.D. Wetherspoon's (Society Rooms) closed in Stalybridge, the town would go under. The price of a pint in some of the pubs in Stalybridge is ridiculous. Some days you can get a pint of hand-pumped cask beer in the Society Rooms for £2.17 and on most days it's now around £2.72.

David Lammy mastermind

Britain's Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, once appeared on BBC Mastermind. One of the questions that he was asked was who succeeded King Henry VIII to the English throne. He answered "Henry VII." 

Lammy has denied that genocide is taking place in Gaza because he says not enough people have been killed by the Israeli Defence Forces. I don't think that international law or the International Criminal Court (ICC), define genocide in terms of numbers killed. The ICC have already issued an international arrest warrant for the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for war crimes and crimes and crimes against humanity. That's what they accused and hung the Nazis for at Nuremberg and elsewhere.