If your moral compass indicates that the previous post’s “revelations” were a shocker – Thatcher beds Blair – the revelations here will slam it right through the top of your shockometer.
Or they should, if your moral values are anything like mine.
In Channel 4′s excuse for comic strip juveniliaThe Hunt for Tony Blair the REAL story is not that Margaret Thatcher is after her toy boy’s body. The ‘real’ story is that -
Tony Blair Kills Two Colleagues
He doesn’t just order them both to be killed, as conspiracy fantasists like to suggest regarding at least one A N Other. Not on your whygetyourhandsdirty nelly! He physically, personally pushes one of them off a cliff!
Robin Cook after making his resignation speech in Parliament, March 17th 2003
And who, in this malign attack dressed up as creative arts, was the unfortunate victim of the evil, immoral, sinful, iniquitous, wicked, repulsive, lousy, nefarious, loathsome – [pause for breath] – not to mention murderous prime minister?
None other than the late Robin Cook, who died of a heart attack in 2005, aged 59.
Mr Cook , the hero of the anti-war warriors was the former Cabinet minister who just happens to have resigned in Parliament over Blair’s Iraq motion.
NOTE – VOTE in PARLIAMENT which Blair won by 412 votes to 149. A majority, one might suggest. More below on Robin Cook’s life and death.
And the other victim of Blair’s murderous hand?
The late John Smith, the Labour party leader who preceded Blair. He too died of a heart attack, aged 54, on 12th May 1994. And just to prove that his “killer” Tony Blair is an evil, immoral … [you know the rest] .. that was even before Blair had contaminated his soul by allying with the evil, immor … Americans.
John Smith, leader of the Labour party died suddenly, after two heart attacks
I mentioned the clear COLLAPSE OF MORAL VALUES in the previous posts. But this is more than that. It is nothing less than accusations of murder.
A LITTLE ‘RICH’ (TO COIN A LYING PHRASE)
In this report at The Guardian the Director Peter Richardson, who co-wrote the comedy with Pete Richens said he had been sensitive to the portrayal of real people in the film, including Smith and Cook, who is pushed off the top of a hill by Blair.
What!? He had been sensitive to the portrayal of “real people”?
As far as Blair & Thatcher are concerned he has been about as sensitive as the proverbial bull! Presumably they are not real people. They nor their families.
Excerpt, Guardian (where he worries about DEAD people!!! Really dead real people!) -
“Yes I do worry about Robin Cook and John Smith. There’s no suggestion he actually did murder these people; it’s ridiculous and not true,” he told the Media Guardian Edinburgh International Festival.
“There’s no suggestion he…” ? Can’t bring yourself to even mention his name? I know the feeling you towering tw*t.
So why bloody-well write it if there’s “no suggestion”, you utterly reprehensible pair of populist, money-grabbing, prize nincompoops? There is exactly such a suggestion. We realise it is ridiculous and not true, but WHY write and broadcast this tripe?
Why tell the invented tale of a Hunt For Tony Blair and paint an utterly fanciful story about his having killed two of his closest political friends?
WHY?
BLOODY WHY?
ANSWER – YOU IDIOTS!!!!!
You, Richardson, and your arty-farty anti-Iraq war pals may well “want to see Tony Blair chased” but that is beside the point.
I’d like to see you roasted slowly over a spit till you scream in anguish, but I’m not about to write a piece depicting it.
Just so you know I too have spent much of my life in the arts, so I’m not some prissy stick-in-the-mud regarding experimental artistic licence.
As for coinciding this ‘film’ showing with the release of the Chilcot Report – what’s all that about?
Have you been told when exactly Chilcot will publish? Because, as I understand it, Mr Blair hasn’t.
Perhaps you’ll be kind enough to let him know through my blog. I’ll pass it on with your best wishes and sincere apologies – according to your legal advice.
In the next post I will look at the responses or/and coverage of this Tale From Two Twits and try to cast some light on what exactly is going on here.
The MP for Livingstone died of a heart attack aged 59 while hill-walking with his wife, Gaynor, in August 2005. An outspoken critic of the government’s decision to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime, Cook quit his post as leader of the House of Commons in 2003 in protest at the policy.
Mr Cook took ill while hill walking in the Scottish Highlands and was pronounced dead in hospital after he fell eight feet down a ridge, near the summit of 2,365ft Ben Stack.
A postmortem examination concluded that he died from hypertensive heart disease.
As it happens Robin Cook was also a leading light in going into Kosovo without a UNSC resolution. War crime, anyone?
Not that this is the only example of stretching truth and scurrilous lying for dramatic effect and box-office cash. The Anglo/French film The Iron Lady is particularly unkind, nasty, even spiteful towards the elderly and infirm Margaret Thatcher.
And we’re constantly told that the politically Left is oh-so-caring, aren’t we? But at least Baroness Thatcher is not accused of murder.
Mail excerpt:
“Pathe says the story is about ‘power and the price that is paid for power’ and claims her health is ‘treated with sensitivity’. It concedes the film is fiction but says it is ‘fair and accurate’. “
I am staggered by all the hate directed towards our former Prime Minister. I believe that Tony Blair made the Iraq decision in good faith and is most certainly NOT a war criminal. If anyone should be tried at the Hague it should be those in the media for totally misrepresenting the information and facts. The media are to blame for fuelling this hatred as it is purely driven by them. (UK)
__________
The greatest and most successful leader the Labour Party has ever had with the courage to fight the Islamist terrorists who really would like to kill us all, and you never hear a good word about him. The herd of independent minds, commentators, activists etc who have never had to make a difficult decision in their lives drown out all debate with their inane chants of war crimes and blood on his hands. Defend him at every chance. I just wish more people would do it. (Glasgow, UK)
__________
Blair was the greatest Labour Prime Minister. It is a disgrace that the party has turned away from his legacy. Shame on Ed Miliband and his so-called ‘new generation’.
The Shame of the British Arts world & ensuing Press coverage
The pair are shown sharing a post-coital cigarette. "I'm so in love with you," she tells Blair. "I won my war. You didn't."
Baroness Thatcher, the former conservative prime minister (below), was the first (and still the only) female British PM. She is now aged 85 and is suffering from dementia, as revealed by her daughter Carol in August 2008.
Picture above: September 2008, former PM Baroness Thatcher attends a Commemorative Service on 10 year anniversary of Northern Ireland settlement. A settlement signed and delivered by the man below.
Picture below: Former Labour prime minister, Tony Blair, record-breaking winner for his party and confessed admirer of Margaret Thatcher’s leadership qualities. He is 58 and is not afflicted by degenerative illness.
Tony Blair is known and admired worldwide as a “world statesman”. But in Britain he is the constant target for relentless, often cruel personal attack.
THE COLLAPSE OF MORAL VALUES
Channel 4, which regularly plumbs depths of depravity in its search for others’ imagined depravity, has performed a right old cock-up here.
It has put together an hour-long “one-off” – The Hunt for Tony Blair – in which Mr Blair is seduced by Margaret Thatcher. Yes, I’ll say that again – Tony Blair is seduced by Margaret Thatcher. You couldn’t make it up. Except that C4 has.
Forget for a moment that Baroness Thatcher is in her 86th year and is suffering from dementia, as many of us do or eventually will.
Forget too that Tony Blair at 58 is not so afflicted and that he has children, one of just 11 years old, who will be aware of this inane hogwash. They may even be personally affected, if only through ribbing or bullying.
But forget that – as Channel 4 clearly has. Forget any personal consideration towards the individuals or their families displayed in this romp of perverted imagination.
But forget this at your peril:
OUR SOCIETY’S MORAL VALUES HAVE BEEN SAVAGED AND WRECKED IN NO SMALL PART BY A CORRUPT AND MENDACIOUS ALL-PERVASIVE MEDIA AND ITS SOULMATES – THE SO-CALLED “ARTS” WORLD. BOTH REGULARLY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OUR “FREEDOMS” WITH IMPUNITY IN THE NAME OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION.
This latest example is about as bad as I have ever seen, and not only because of this Blair & Thatcher sex/power/war tripe.
There has been a lot of useless and oh-so-informed prattle in recent weeks about moral decay following the riots. I have not commented on those issues here partly because Tony Blair has done it so much better while so many others have not. I suggest the reasons for the riots are many and complex. But I differ from Mr Blair in that I think there is some moral decline exemplified and perpetuated by this kind of careless, self-indulgent, titillating rubbish.
Call this “film” a comic strip; call it a satire; call it a film noir. Call it what you will. I call it a disgrace.
If it were up to Yours Truly I’d sue the lot of them to within an inch of their unprincipled, self-centred and highly immoral earnings.
I am staggered by all the hate directed towards our former Prime Minister. I believe that Tony Blair made the Iraq decision in good faith and is most certainly NOT a war criminal. If anyone should be tried at the Hague it should be those in the media for totally misrepresenting the information and facts. The media are to blame for fuelling this hatred as it is purely driven by them. (UK)
__________
The greatest and most successful leader the Labour Party has ever had with the courage to fight the Islamist terrorists who really would like to kill us all, and you never hear a good word about him. The herd of independent minds, commentators, activists etc who have never had to make a difficult decision in their lives drown out all debate with their inane chants of war crimes and blood on his hands. Defend him at every chance. I just wish more people would do it. (Glasgow, UK)
__________
Blair was the greatest Labour Prime Minister. It is a disgrace that the party has turned away from his legacy. Shame on Ed Miliband and his so-called ‘new generation’.
The eponymous journalist Robert Fisk (pictured in 2005)
At Twitter we have been having a little retrospective on the meaning of “fisking it”. The expression derives from this man – Robert Fisk.
Alongside tweeps Citizen Sane and Julie’s Think Tank and Rob Marchant I have been mulling over its meaning and as a result over the condition of the mind of Robert Fisk himself.
It took a little bit of digging but eventually we came across the 2001 article below by Andrew Sullivan.
For those not familiar with the parlance, “fisking it” is a term which is used to describe the forensic line-by-line, sometimes phrase-by-phrase technique used to take apart a given argument.
Since it is widespread on the internet it hardly deserves Fisk’s name attached to it, in my humble opinion. On the other hand – Blairism. Now THAT’S an eponymy worthy of both note and respect. As for Mr Fisk – “forensicing it” or “autopsying it”, maybe. “Dismembering it” even. After all, as you will read in the article below, Mr Fisk would have understood if those who attacked him in Afghanistan had done just that. In any particular order. Whichever rows their good ship “Victimised”.
[I will not "fisk" the below forensically, but will embolden elements, phrases and lines I think deserve it. Warning: there may be quite a few bolds!]
__________
Sunday, December 09, 2001 THE PATHOLOGY OF ROBERT FISK: His account of his ordeal at the hands of an Afghan mob – a mob that apparently cried “Infidel!” as they attacked and tried to rob him – is a classic piece of leftist pathology. You have to read it to believe it. Even when people are trying to murder Fisk, he adamantly refuses to see them as morally culpable or even responsible. I’ve heard of self-hatred but this is ridiculous: “They started by shaking hands. We said, ‘Salaam aleikum’ – peace be upon you – then the first pebbles flew past my face.” That sentence alone deserves to go down as one of the defining quotes of the idiotic left. If it weren’t so tragic, it would be downright hilarious. Who needs Evelyn Waugh when you have this?
“I WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME”: But wait, there’s more. “A small boy tried to grab my bag. Then another. Then someone punched me in the back. Then young men broke my glasses, began smashing stones into my face and head. I couldn’t see for the blood pouring down my forehead and swamping my eyes. And even then, I understood. I couldn’t blame them for what they were doing. In fact, if I were the Afghan refugees of Kila Abdullah, close to the Afghan-Pakistan border, I would have done just the same to Robert Fisk. Or any other Westerner I could find.”
What does this mean, you might well ask? What it means is that someone – anyone – is either innocent or guilty purely by racial or cultural association. An average Westerner is to be taken as an emblem of an entire culture and treated as such. Any random Westerner will do. Individual notions of responsibility or morality are banished, as one group is labeled blameless and another irredeemably malign. There’s a word for this: it’s racism. And like many other members of the far left, Fisk is himself a proud racist, someone who believes that the color of a person’s skin condemns him automatically and justifies violence against him. So the two extremes touch and are, in fact, interchangeable. Rightist racism springs from the premise that some races are somehow morally superior. Leftist racism springs from the premise that some races are also morally superior. The only difference is the color of skin. Alleged “victimization” sanctifies any evil perpetrated by the oppressed race. Just as the Nazis and Communists claimed self-defense for the mass-murder of their “oppressors,” so some modern leftists claim the absolution of self-defense even for a mob attacking a carful of innocent, harmless journalists. Or a sky-scraper for that matter.
THE VICTIM OF THE WORLD: You know the expression: you wouldn’t understand a culture if it actually hit you in the head? Fisk has now officially retired that expression as a metaphor. He goes on: “There were all the Afghan men and boys who had attacked me who should never have done so but whose brutality was entirely the product of others…” Notice that phrase – “whose brutality was entirely the product of others.” What can that possibly mean? We’re not talking about extenuating circumstances – things that might help us understand or contextualize the hatred of one people for another. We’re talking about a priori moral absolution.
Take this passage: “Goddamit, I said and tried to bang my fist on my side until I realised it was bleeding from a big gash on the wrist – the mark of the tooth I had just knocked out of a man’s jaw, a man who was truly innocent of any crime except that of being the victim of the world.”
No, Mr. Fisk, that man who attacked you was not truly innocent of any crime. You were. He was not the victim of the world. You were the victim of a thieving, violent mob.
For those who believe that the left-wing intelligentsia is capable of critical thought or even a modification of their ideology in the face of evidence, this incident is a wonderful example of why it won’t happen. They won’t recognize reality, or abandon their racism, or moderate their spectacular condescension to the inhabitants of the developing world – even when reality, literally, crushingly, punches them in the face.
____
[here below follows more from Andrew Sullivan's site - updates & comments]
THANK YOU: I promised a long time ago that I would publish a list of sponsors for the site. As our redesign seems to be taking longer than the war against al Qaeda, it seems ungrateful to wait for its unveiling to thank you all. A list of sponsors is now up in the site, here. In a few cases, we were unsure from the letters whether the donors wanted anonymity. We’ve withheld their names to protect their privacy. If you’re one of them and want your name added, please email Robert Cameron at Robert@fantascope.com. If you want to become a sponsor, please go to the Tipping Point for instructions.
SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE I: “Those willing to sacrifice for their beliefs deserve respect — even if what they believe in is foolish. As a teenager, American Taliban fighter John Phillip Walker gave up a comfortable life in Marin County and traveled halfway around the world to put his life on the line for his religious convictions. How many of us are that courageous?” – Glenn Sacks, San Francisco Chronicle.
SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE II: “Far from an act of cowardice or retreat, Bin Laden’s canny underground maneuvers replay a religious drama, which enhances both his spiritual power and his political effectiveness with his followers. The images he manipulates not only are those of modern culture but are also religious symbols, which pulse in the psychic underground of our consciousness. Bin Laden’s elusiveness and invisibility are actually sources of his strength. Indeed, his absence has become an overwhelming presence for those who seek him. This is why his death will solve very little. When placed in a ritual context, the sacrificial victim is reborn in the spirit of the community of his followers. Like religious martyrs before him, Bin Laden will become even more powerful in death than in life.” – Mark C. Taylor, Los Angeles Times. He’s a professor, natch.
SADDAM’S GAS CHAMBER: Not sure whether this story is checkable, but opposition groups in Iraq claim that Saddam is now gassing his political prisoners in specially built gas chambers. Any further confirmation of this story is welcome. Here’s the link from the Kuwaiti Times.
LETTERS: Steve Chapman replies; an enlisted servicemember remembers.
MEDIA BIAS WATCH: Check out these two captions from the AP and Reuters for the same photograph. The AP caption: “A group of Hamas suicide bombers, with fake dynamite strapped around their chests, parade at the el-Hilweh refugee camp near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon on Sunday, Dec. 9, 2001, during an anti-Israel demonstration organized by Hamas to mark the 14th anniversary of its founding. The group said they hoped to join their Hamas colleagues in Palestinian areas to carry out suicide attacks against Israel.” The Reuters caption: “Members of Hamas pray during a rally held at Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp near the port-city of Sidon in south Lebanon, December 9, 2001. Palestinians poured into the streets in Lebanon on Sunday to mark the14th anniversary of the founding of the militant Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.” No wonder they can’t bring themselves to use the word “terrorist.”
- 8:46:40 PM FISK’S FREUDIAN SLIP: What happened to British left-wing journalist, Robert Fisk, was terrible. He was attacked by a crowd of angry Afghans, after his car broke down in a dangerous spot. But what he said about it is so deeply revealing, it’s worth recording. “If I had been them, I would have attacked me,” he said. Think about that for a minute. He doesn’t excuse their violence – “It doesn’t excuse them for beating me up so badly” – yet he feels they were morally justified in what they did. Isn’t that exactly what the far left essentially meant in the wake of September 11: that the massacre was wrong but understandable? And doesn’t it suggest that the only moral difference between these intellectuals seduced by violence and the terrorists themselves is the will and capacity to actually translate beliefs into action? - 4:37:09 PM
“… the term “fisking” has come to denote the practice of “savaging an argument and scattering the tattered remnants to the four corners of the internet”.[11]
Fisk is one of the few Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden – three times (all published by The Independent: December 6, 1993, July 10, 1996, and March 22, 1997). During one of Fisk’s interviews with Bin Laden, Fisk noted an attempt by Bin Laden to convert him. Bin Laden said; “Mr Robert, one of our brothers had a dream. He dreamed … that you were a spiritual person … this means you are a true Muslim.” Fisk replied; “Sheikh Osama, I am not a Muslim … I am a journalist … A journalist’s task is to tell the truth.” Bin Laden replied: “If you tell the truth, that means you are a good Muslim.”[16][17]
During the 1996 interview, Bin Laden accused the Saudi royal family of corruption. During the 1997 (and final) interview, Bin Laden said he sought God’s help “to turn America into a shadow of itself”.[18]
I am staggered by all the hate directed towards our former Prime Minister. I believe that Tony Blair made the Iraq decision in good faith and is most certainly NOT a war criminal. If anyone should be tried at the Hague it should be those in the media for totally misrepresenting the information and facts. The media are to blame for fuelling this hatred as it is purely driven by them. (UK)
__________
The greatest and most successful leader the Labour Party has ever had with the courage to fight the Islamist terrorists who really would like to kill us all, and you never hear a good word about him. The herd of independent minds, commentators, activists etc who have never had to make a difficult decision in their lives drown out all debate with their inane chants of war crimes and blood on his hands. Defend him at every chance. I just wish more people would do it. (Glasgow, UK)
__________
Blair was the greatest Labour Prime Minister. It is a disgrace that the party has turned away from his legacy. Shame on Ed Miliband and his so-called ‘new generation’.
A propos nothing in particular except (possibly) lying dissembling confusion by the BBC as here at previous post, comes this video. It purports to show huge crowds in Green Square, Libya though the BBC announcers or editor should have known, one would have thought, that it was filmed in India!
Libya / Incredible media lies – BBC shows “Green Square” in INDIA, 24 August 2011
Are the BBC news department about to apologise for showing this video and making it out to be Tripoli? What do you think?
__________
More Independent (anti-Iraq war/pro Lib Dem) press mind-control
Mandelson, saying he had “no regrets whatsoever” about Mr Blair’s decision to offer his “hand of friendship” to Colonel Gaddafi in his Bedouin tent outside Tripoli seven years ago, also dismissed as “absolute rubbish” claims that the motive was to secure access to Libya’s oil and gas reserves for British firms, saying the aim was to halt terrorism and prevent a dangerous dictator developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
Lord Mandelson said: “We were right at the time to bring Gaddafi in from the cold to deal with his sponsorship of terror and his weapons of mass destruction. That is what it was about.”
Lord Mandelson argued that the current situation in Libya could be much more dangerous if Col Gaddafi had access to WMDs. “If this rebellion had taken place and he was still in possession of his weapons, still able to organise terror, he would have had no hesitation in doing so. We would be in a much worse position if Mr Blair did not do what he did.”
The former Cabinet minister accused Mr Cameron of using events in Libya to try to “discredit” Mr Blair but said: “That’s just politics. It’s neither fair nor justified… Just as it is right to support the rebels now, it was right then to engage Gaddafi in the way that we did.”
I am staggered by all the hate directed towards our former Prime Minister. I believe that Tony Blair made the Iraq decision in good faith and is most certainly NOT a war criminal. If anyone should be tried at the Hague it should be those in the media for totally misrepresenting the information and facts. The media are to blame for fuelling this hatred as it is purely driven by them. (UK)
__________
The greatest and most successful leader the Labour Party has ever had with the courage to fight the Islamist terrorists who really would like to kill us all, and you never hear a good word about him. The herd of independent minds, commentators, activists etc who have never had to make a difficult decision in their lives drown out all debate with their inane chants of war crimes and blood on his hands. Defend him at every chance. I just wish more people would do it. (Glasgow, UK)
__________
Blair was the greatest Labour Prime Minister. It is a disgrace that the party has turned away from his legacy. Shame on Ed Miliband and his so-called ‘new generation’.
Due to brainwashing having silently pervaded society much potential unrest among the populace has been calmed if only temporarily. Confusion within the bowels of the publicly paid-for national broadcaster has meant that the average citizen has little idea what’s being done in his/her name.
Iran? Syria? Saudi Arabia? Libya?
Try again -
BRITAIN TODAY
The BBC has an agenda which prevents it from mentioning anything which may make people conclude that Tony Blair was not such a bad guy. For instance the behaviour of the present coalition government in Libya in comparison with that of Blair over Iraq. Cameron’s government is presently doing what the BBC accuses Blair of – acting outwith a UN mandate.
How else does one explain why the BBC – which has BY FAR the largest reach of any media outlet – far more than Murdoch - still has not told us what we can find out via the Sydney Morning Herald
“…soldiers from 22 SAS Regiment began guiding rebel soldiers after being ordered in by the Prime Minister, David Cameron. For the first time, defence sources have confirmed the SAS has been in Libya for several weeks, and played a key role in co-ordinating the battle for Tripoli.”
“Camouflaged in Arab attire and carrying weapons similar to rebels, the SAS have been ordered to switch their focus on the search for Gaddafi, on the run since his fortified headquarters was captured on Tuesday, Telegraph reported quoting British Defence officials.”
It has plenty of coverage at its website but still nothing on this matter at the blessed/anti-Blair/anti-Iraq war/anti-intervention aka ever so high falutin’/”principled”/#unbiased” BBC.
Not that ALL British media outlets have omitted to tell us what they know about breaking the UN resolution 1973, though of course they never manage to utter those “breaking news” words. For instance The Telegraph has the story and a video here
“They returned to Libya in February this year, even before the UN mandate urging states to protect civilians from Gaddafi’s forces.”
Norton-Taylor reminds us in a short (for him!) article that SAS soldiers were in Libya even before the recent unrest had really got underway and gently says “a number of SAS soldiers are now advising the rebels as they storm the capital, Tripoli.”
A senior Whitehall official told Channel 4 News just a few weeks ago that the Libya campaign was initially a “mess” and added that the pace of change recently had taken some governments by surprise.
It followed repeated claims by Foreign Secretary William Hague that the Gaddafi regime was “crumbling”, which seemed to contradict a feeling of military stalemate on the ground.
The official said it was feared that David Cameron was repeating the mistakes of Tony Blair, in a reference to the decisions surrounding the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
According to one recent intelligence assessment it was believed Gaddafi would still be in power in Tripoli in September, choosing between rival peace initiatives brokered by the African Union amongst others.
In March the Mirror said that “hundreds of troops” had been operating in Libya for three weeks.
“Hundreds of British SAS soldiers have been operating with rebel groups inside Libya for three weeks, the Sunday Mirror can reveal today.
Two special forces units, nicknamed “Smash” teams for their destructive ability, are hunting Colonel Gaddafi’s long-range surface-to-air missile systems, which could launch attacks on jets or commercial airliners.
The crack troops have been racing against time to pinpoint the Libyan Army’s most potent strategic weapon, the Russian-made SAM 5 missile systems. Despite their age, the systems have a range of more than 200 miles and the capability to hit targets across the Mediterranean.
The two SAS units, joined by signallers, engineers and medics, are simultaneously establishing positions on the ground in case any Western jets are downed during an air attack.”
I am staggered by all the hate directed towards our former Prime Minister. I believe that Tony Blair made the Iraq decision in good faith and is most certainly NOT a war criminal. If anyone should be tried at the Hague it should be those in the media for totally misrepresenting the information and facts. The media are to blame for fuelling this hatred as it is purely driven by them. (UK)
__________
The greatest and most successful leader the Labour Party has ever had with the courage to fight the Islamist terrorists who really would like to kill us all, and you never hear a good word about him. The herd of independent minds, commentators, activists etc who have never had to make a difficult decision in their lives drown out all debate with their inane chants of war crimes and blood on his hands. Defend him at every chance. I just wish more people would do it. (Glasgow, UK)
__________
Blair was the greatest Labour Prime Minister. It is a disgrace that the party has turned away from his legacy. Shame on Ed Miliband and his so-called ‘new generation’.
There are many pictures online of the recent riots in London and other English cities. Too many.
of rioters burning buildings and cars;
of yobs, formerly known as Britain’s “yoof”, smashing down shop windows and ripping large tv sets off walls, running out of shops arms full of goods;
of violence towards the police, fire officers and even innocent passersby.
Below I have added three videos and three pictures. They tell a tale which we Brits should rightly denounce with anguish and anger.
But first the uplifting, courageous, tragic yet highly dignified words of a father from Birmingham whose son, with two friends (brothers) was mown down and killed by rioters who had stolen a car -
Tariq Jahan -
“Step forward if you want to lose your sons, otherwise calm down and go home. Please!”
The article below Fear & loathing in the UK puts all of this into some sort of context. I do not agree with all of the article. For instance I don’t conclude that it is mainly the fault of the previous government. I believe it is far more complex and reaches further back for its roots. But there is more with which I agree than disagree. It is one of the best written articles I have come across in this period of analysis, justification, excuse, blame, reasons.
Several images will haunt the mind following the devastating and disgusting riots that swept the UK in August. One is that of a dignified, quietly spoken Asian man in Birmingham, mourning the murder of his son. Tariq Jahan, living every parent’s nightmare, spoke with a conviction and authority that our seasoned politicians lack. When he said “step forward if you want to lose your son”, it brought tears to my eyes. With his calm bearing and his appeal for reconciliation, he also offered a vestige of hope for the future and some restoration of faith in humanity.
Then there was the black woman in Hackney berating fellow residents for their folly. The footage quickly became a You Tube sensation. “This is about a f****** man who got shot in Tottenham” (a reference to the shooting of Mark Duggan whose death at police hands served as the excuse for the initial protests) this ain’t about having fun and busting up the place. Get real, black people!”
Unfortunately, her words went unheeded as looters continued their “shopping expedition” and even barged past her with their booty.
Another is the Malaysian student, Ashraf Rossli, the victim of a mugging, who was helped to his feet by a gang of supposed good Samaritan “hoodies” only to be subsequently robbed. This young man, later interviewed on television, came across as forgiving and sweet-natured. He said he felt sorry for his attackers and even described the UK as “great”. Cynics would say he was aware of a fund set up in his name. Truth is, he was probably determined to finish his studies in the UK despite his mother’s pleadings to come home.
The most iconic image of all, however, was that of the young Polish woman, Monika Konczyk, who had only been in London for a few months, jumping from a burning building in Ealing. It’s worth mulling over her reflections on her adopted country. Perhaps politicians, who will inevitably recover their complacency in a few weeks’ time, should re-read her words every night before turning off the light.
“I thought London was a civilised society full of gentlemen and ladies – but it is not like that,” said Konczyk. “England has become a sick society. I found myself jumping for my life after being attacked by thugs and thieves. They set fire to my building without any thought for anyone’s safety. They were happy for me to die. They were like animals – greedy, selfish animals who thought only of themselves. I am shocked to find people behaving like this in England. It is not what I expected of the English. I have never seen anything like this in Poland. Polish people are hard-working and respectable. They believe in working for a living, not stealing from others. If you want nice clothes or a new TV, you don’t smash shop windows and loot them – you work and pay for them.”
The sound of the city The riots have unmasked the real UK. Never again will British expats fleeing their country’s inner cities for the serenity of Sofia or Veliko Turnovo be pressed by naive Bulgarians on their motives. Too many Eastern Europeans go to the UK, brainwashed by old movies, expecting to find genteel civility. Instead they emerge traumatised by the thuggery and brutality of British life.
Perhaps any film pre-1980 should carry an on-screen advisory. “Warning: this is a nostalgic depiction of a long-gone Britain. The characterisations and events depicted bear no relation to what you can expect to find today.”
Sorry to disillusion naive Bulgarians out there, but the UK is no longer the land of the English gentleman. You are more likely to find Vinny Jones as a neighbour than Roger Moore. Neither is the UK the country of warm beer and cricket, the deluded fantasy of former prime minister John Major. The sound you are more likely to hear, even in the countryside, in NOT that of willow making contact with cork and leather but a boot stamping on a human head or kicking in a window.
Fact is, the riots were shocking in their scale and intensity but not really all that surprising to those in the know. Anyone who has the misfortune to venture out around any major British city or town on a Friday or Saturday night knows the grim reality. Only those in the most gentrified areas, sheltering in detached houses behind leafy hedgerows, would say otherwise. I know from experience that even Richmond, an affluent suburb of London, can be dangerous after dark.
When I was there, in 2006, hordes of “hoodies” descended en masse with bottles and burgers, abusing passers-by and leaving a trail of mess on the Green that is home to some of London’s most famous residents. On another occasion, walking down Richmond High Street, some kids were urinating in shop doorways. One young girl was seen wiping her putrid backside on some copies of the Evening Standard in front of a newsagent. And I suppose Ken Livingstone would say they deserve each other!
Feral and ferocious Conservative commentators – such as Peter Hitchens and Max Hastings – have quite rightly cited some of the causes of “broken Britain” – the breakdown of the family unit, absent fathers, blatant disrespect for authority, a bloated welfare system, softly softly policing and lenient courts. To which I would add that recent events in the UK have revealed a vicious sadism, pure and simple. The same people who gleefully drove Fiona Pilkington and her disabled daughter to their deaths are those (also British people) who beat my mother to a pulp on her front door in the Algarve simply because she was not carrying any money on her.
These young thugs, unconstrained by morality and conscience, act on impulse. They rape, plunder, maim and attack at whim. One of the most disturbing aspects of modern Britain is the way that society’s most vulnerable people – the infirm, the poor, the frail, the confined and the old – have become fair game for these sadists.
Yet many liberal politicians and commentators, in spite of the horrors inflicted on their own constituencies by these feral beasts, still look for excuses: government cuts, inequality (although the poorest British people are likely to be far richer than the poorest Bulgarians) the closure of youth centres, or unemployment. But bear in mind that the old clarion cry that the offenders are “Thatcher’s children” will no longer do. Many of those looters were teenagers. In some cases they were even younger. They are John Major’s or Tony Blair’s “children”. They have lived most of their lives under a centre-left government. What has influenced them the most, 13 years of Labour rule or 15 months of David Cameron?
A racial component? One myth peddled by the British press is that the riots did not have a racial component. Most foreign journalists viewing the images from Tottenham, Hackney, Toxteth and Croydon would say otherwise. Take the Bulgarian journalist, speaking on his country’s evening news, who said that the riots represented a “failure to integrate the country’s black and Asian minorities”.
The culprits may not always be home grown (they might have come in from other areas to loot and destroy) but the cities where the violence occurred – London, Manchester, Bristol, Liverpool and Birmingham – are those with sizeable ethnic communities. Some of the more revolting images would appear to have been censored by the British press. I’m referring to a white woman forced to strip naked and a young white man forced to strip to his underpants, on both occasions by black people.
Yet, amazingly, this behaviour still has its apologists. Brixton-based former Black Panther Darcus Howe even equated the UK riots with uprisings in Syria and Libya! By contrast, former London mayor Ken Livingstone was (by his standards) remarkably restrained, merely calling for more police and curfews – (hey, that’s a bit reactionary for you, isn’t it, Ken?)
The Guardian’s Seamus Milne said that deprivation lay behind the riots. “If it has no connection with Britain’s savage social divide and ghettos of deprivation, why did it kick off in Haringey and not Henley?” he wrote.
Milne’s comparison is absurd. It’s more appropriate to compare like with like. The more pertinent question is this: Why were there riots in Liverpool and Manchester but calm in Newcastle and Edinburgh? Sure, Haringey and Hackney are deprived areas but so are parts of Newcastle. Yet the northeast did not burn. And one explanation is simply that the latter is a more homogenous area.
Patois Anthony Daniels, a former prison doctor and psychiatrist who penned many pieces under the pseudonym of Theodore Dalrymple (presumably to avoid the scrutiny of the PC mob while he was practising) has written that British (white) youths are the most violent and unpleasant in the world. Even if one had never visited the UK, a trip to the Spanish Costas or Sunny Beach would confirm his view.
When you ally that to the worst aspects of black gangland culture – anti-authority and materialist – then you have a lethal combination. Many British journalists, of course, would not dare to broach this subject in the aftermath of the riots. Historian Dr David Starkey was one of the few establishment figures to raise his head above the parapet.
“What’s happened is that a substantial section of the Chavs…have become black,” said Starkey on the BBC’s Newsnight programme. “A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion. And black and white, boy and girl, operate in this language together, this language which is wholly false, which is this Jamaican patois that’s been intruded in England, and this is why so many of us have this sense of literally a foreign country.”
Starkey has a good point, although his choice of words was perhaps infelicitous. Starkey meant that that many white kids embrace what they PERCEIVE to be Afro-Caribbean street culture – rap music, rebellion and rage. Starkey was alluding to a specific cultural phenomenon, not to the behaviour of all black people. The fact that many black people, particularly older ones, are likely to be more regular churchgoers – the legacy of the God-fearing Windrush generation – is beyond idiotic white kids who emulate only the “street cred” aspects of black culture. Unfortunately, however, one of the most unpalatable manifestations of this particular brand of street culture is rap music which glorifies violence and crass materialism.
‘In da dock’ The Ali G stereotype (the character invented by Sacha Baron Cohen) was a satire. Behind the outrageous persona, however, lay an important point. As teachers in any school will tell you, youth behaviour emulates all that is trendy and anti-establishment. Adolescents instinctively dumb down, hence the voices of the most disaffected youth – in this case the urban black male – have merged with working class white males to form a new language. Sadly, intellectual aspiration, social etiquette and gentleness of manner are deemed hopelessly old fashioned by today’s youth, both black and white. All too many aspire only to the latest fashion accessories.
Watching the interviews with white “yoof” in London, it is indeed striking that their speech patterns are similar to those of urban black youth. Even when I once attended a Jewish employment centre I was struck by the fact that some Jewish teenagers were also speaking in this patois. Unfortunately, this behaviour stretches beyond speech patterns. Take the case of Ruby Thomas – the white privately educated schoolgirl convicted of kicking a gay man to death in London. She cheerfully regaled her Facebook friends with her pending appearance in “da dock”. The Daily Mail covered her case extensively and noted how “she began emulating the language and mannerisms – or, at least, what she and others mistakenly perceived as the language and mannerisms – of black urban youth culture.”
The same newspaper quoted an interview with a former contemporary of hers at school.
“She talked as if she was black and never realised how completely ridiculous she sounded,” said the former Sydenham pupil. ‘She would call herself a ‘gangsta’. She was almost obsessive about it.”
Indeed, when a friend told Thomas that she looked mixed race’ in one of her Facebook photographs (in fact, the result of copious amounts of fake tan), she replied: ‘WhoooooHooo.’
Most people would probably agree with Starkey. Predictably, however, his comments unleashed condemnation and allegations of racism from people like the BBC’s correspondent Robert Peston and former newspaper editor Piers Morgan. Yet Tony Sewell, a black columnist, formerly on the Voice newspaper and now CEO of the charity Generating Genius that helps black boys, said Starkey had a point.
“Despite the attempts of some apologists to dress up the looting as a political act against an oppressive Tory establishment, the fact is that the ethos of materialism – or ‘bling’ to use the street term – that pervades urban black youth played a major part in the widespread criminality perpetrated by rioters of all races,” Sewell wrote in the Daily Mail.
PC I have fulminated so many times on the evils of political correctness but never is its pernicious nature more visible than in the furore surrounding Starkey’s comments. In the aftermath of these appalling events, we need to open up discussion, not foreclose it. If the riots were an outrage, the stifling of debate would be even more horrendous.
Several other issues have to be addressed in the wake of the rioting. We need to probe police methods more scrupulously. In two years of living in Tottenham I never saw one police officer except when they had a football match at White Hart Lane. This cannot be acceptable. Neither can the oft-repeated belief that a heavy police presence is in some way “provocative”.
The old argument that deprivation causes the rioting and looting is belied by those of us who live in cities such as Sofia. In the Bulgarian capital the vast majority of people live in socialist style housing. Yet trouble is negligible. Neither do the police in Sofia feel constrained by the extremely laissez-faire tactics of their British counterparts. As far as I could see, too often, particularly on the first night of the London riots, the police were simply driving the rioters away from one part of town towards another.
Britain’s political class has ignored social decay for far too long. Prime minister David Cameron was absolutely right to say that “pockets of Britain are clearly very sick” but that is an understatement. The reality is that the UK as a whole is increasingly warped. Anyone re-visiting after a long absence abroad immediately notices the slide in standards: the graphic warts-and-all reality shows, the sickening descent into ritual humiliation of guests on such shows as The Weakest Link, the open celebration of greed in advertisements, the sloppy speech patterns of newscasters, the cynical machinations of corrupt politicians, the casual denigration of Britain’s history and the cynicism displayed towards higher values of any kind.
I end with a warning to the political establishment. London cannot hope to host a major event like the Olympic Games without guaranteeing public safety. There is an unspoken covenant between the government and the people. If we work hard and respect the law, then we expect the police and the courts to come to our assistance promptly when we are threatened with criminality. That covenant has now been broken. The big question is – will it ever return? Or will more people resort to taking the law into their own hands? As I look ahead, to quote a famous deceased politician, I am filled with foreboding. I pray to God I am wrong.
I am staggered by all the hate directed towards our former Prime Minister. I believe that Tony Blair made the Iraq decision in good faith and is most certainly NOT a war criminal. If anyone should be tried at the Hague it should be those in the media for totally misrepresenting the information and facts. The media are to blame for fuelling this hatred as it is purely driven by them. (UK)
__________
The greatest and most successful leader the Labour Party has ever had with the courage to fight the Islamist terrorists who really would like to kill us all, and you never hear a good word about him. The herd of independent minds, commentators, activists etc who have never had to make a difficult decision in their lives drown out all debate with their inane chants of war crimes and blood on his hands. Defend him at every chance. I just wish more people would do it. (Glasgow, UK)
__________
Blair was the greatest Labour Prime Minister. It is a disgrace that the party has turned away from his legacy. Shame on Ed Miliband and his so-called ‘new generation’.
It’s not often I sing the praises of the BBC, as you may have noticed. But there are some excellent people there, despite all. Jon Sopel for one, who wrote this a few days ago on Tony Blair in Nazareth:
“After ten years at the top of British politics, he has managed to improve the economic well-being of the Palestinians, and his quiet painstaking work is respected by both sides. But as I watched him working the streets of Nazareth, I sensed that Tony Blair feels he has one more big job in him — and this might not be it.”
Wish-Fulfilment As News thinking, but from a different angle than that which John Rentoul refers to? Perhaps. But one with which many of us would like to concur. Vision and leadership doesn’t come in and hang around long with every parliamentary session.
And today, as we struggle with the first major riots on the British mainland in thirty years, Mark Easton reminds us of this:
“Within weeks of coming to power in 1997, Tony Blair set up a Social Exclusion Unit inside the Cabinet Office specifically to deal with what his party painted as Margaret Thatcher’s underclass – hundreds of thousands of people, workless, skill-less, often homeless and hopeless, a group cut off from mainstream society – dubbed the entrenched 5%.
Huge sums were pumped into schemes in the most deprived neighbourhoods, but tussles over budgets and the sheer challenge of engaging with people who are often hostile to officialdom meant ambition couldn’t translate into outcome.
In February 2006, as knives were being sharpened by Old Labourites, Tony Blair still had his mind on social exclusion issues, when many of us were looking the other way. This is by Brian Wheeler -
“The fact that Mr Blair has now decided to appoint a Cabinet minister with special responsibility for social exclusion will be seen by critics as a final admission of that failure.
It is also, perhaps, a sign of his impatience that many of the social problems he set out to tackle in 1997 are still there.
Mr Blair clearly thinks it is time for a rethink on the issue of social exclusion.
There is a growing mood on all sides of the debate that civil servants and ministers in Whitehall may not have all the answers and that a centralised approach is not the answer.”
Enter Stage Right – Mr Cameron’s Big Society? Well, maybe.
Personally I don’t know if his heart, or that of his party is in it. I certainly don’t recall Mr Cameron saying before recent events that social exclusion should be dealt with. Not until now.
“Cameron needs to show that Conservatism really is compassionate and that it won’t just be tough on crime, but also its causes. This means that budget cuts should never take precedence, as they seem to be, over public safety or rebuilding our communities.
Cameron isn’t Blair yet and never will be.”
Today in Parliament
Cameron: More power to Police – curfews – ban face-masks – street gang injunctions – possible use of water cannon/(rubber bullets) – review of instant messaging services – greater powers to courts. Oh, and eviction.
Excerpt:
“Let’s be clear, however, that the criminal actions of a few can and do undermine quality of life for the vast majority of law abiding tenants in Britain’s social housing. The sense that a rogue element are “getting away with it” is a corrosive force in these communities.
Former prime minister Tony Blair recognised this when he launched the (rather lacklustre) rights and responsibilities campaign in the mid-2000s – and having been unable return to my own home for much of this week, I feel it myself. Blair saw that institutional deference had been eroded in the equally important fight for a more liberal society with greater opportunity for all, and predicted the serious consequences which have now come to pass.”
“The highest realistic estimate I’ve seen for rioters in one place was 200, and pictures of that event suggest that it was too high. It also seems that one must make a practical distinction (if not a moral one) between rioters and looters — people who entered shops already broken into to steal goods. There is some evidence of the same people moving from one location to another. With the number of arrests at about 500, I seriously wonder if many more than a few thousand people were involved in rioting.
This is important because it tells us two things. First, we are not dealing with a mass criminal insurrection. And second, that a remarkably small number of people, if they are mobile and use surprise, can cause mayhem out of all proportion to their numbers. I was told this by Tony Blair once, in the context of terrorism, and it’s true.”
Update: My dear friend John Rentoul has this today. Though I must say I am not sure what his last sentence has to do with the price of free tv sets today - “But no one pointed out that there was looting during the Second World War. “
ETCETERA
If you think Cameron’s response today to the riots was less than you’d have wished for (I’m reasonably content, btw – yes this is me, reasonably content!) read this from civil rights guardian(!) Ahmadinejad, via The Guardian - UK riots: Iran calls on UN to intervene over ‘violent suppression’ - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad condemns British government for its ‘brutal beating’ of ‘the opposition’
Perhaps we should stop complaining about David Cameron.
OK. I’ll take my own advice. Mr Cameron you did well. (as well as could be expected)
I am staggered by all the hate directed towards our former Prime Minister. I believe that Tony Blair made the Iraq decision in good faith and is most certainly NOT a war criminal. If anyone should be tried at the Hague it should be those in the media for totally misrepresenting the information and facts. The media are to blame for fuelling this hatred as it is purely driven by them. (UK)
__________
The greatest and most successful leader the Labour Party has ever had with the courage to fight the Islamist terrorists who really would like to kill us all, and you never hear a good word about him. The herd of independent minds, commentators, activists etc who have never had to make a difficult decision in their lives drown out all debate with their inane chants of war crimes and blood on his hands. Defend him at every chance. I just wish more people would do it. (Glasgow, UK)
__________
Blair was the greatest Labour Prime Minister. It is a disgrace that the party has turned away from his legacy. Shame on Ed Miliband and his so-called ‘new generation’.
“@BBCNews: PM won’t be returning early from holiday to deal with riots or financial criticism” says it all really doesn’t it!
__________
Since I pasted the above into the draft post, we have been told that the Prime Minister IS coming home tonight after all. Wise move.
Tomorrow morning there will be a COBRA meeting. Wonder if they will sanction the use of water cannon in Emergency Measures legislation? If so fill the hoses with indelible dye.
heard from a friend whose Dad is in the army that they have been told to standby #londonriots
__________
“Crisis? What crisis?’
And the originator of the infamous “What crisis” headline? The press. Who else?
It was The Sun, not James Callaghan the Labour PM in 1979 – just shortly before Labour was deposed and out of power for 18 years. (Article was written when Blair’s government was suffering from an earlier “crisis. The sort he took in his stride, remember.)
Is this a Summer of Discontent?
Excerpt from 1979 Winter of Discontent:
1979: Rubbish piles up in London’s Leicester Square
“Crisis? What crisis?”Three words that helped bring down the last Labour government in 1979, even though the man generally thought to have uttered them – Jim Callaghan – did not in fact do so.
I don’t think other people in the world would share the view [that] there is mounting chaos
Jim Callaghan’s actual words
But the Sun journalist who fashioned that headline caught the popular impression of a government unaware of a very serious state of affairs which had sneaked up on it.
Faced with the current fuel blockades, Education Secretary David Blunkett has admitted that people in general – and probably Labour politicians in particular – still remember the Winter of Discontent with a shiver up their spine.
____________________
Welcome back to the Big Society, Dave. Time for a video?
This was The Clash – with London’s Burning (live) in April 1978
Or a more innocent/sinister version of the same title?
___________________
UPDATES & RUNNING COMMENTARY
Sky News Live is usually ahead of the BBC for what’s- a-happening, and you can watch Sky outside of the UK.
The Telegraph has pictures and live updates of latest outbreaks of violence, arson and looting.
This looting, burning of cars, buses and buildings has nothing whatsoever to do with the man who was killed last Thursday during a Police encounter. It is symptomatic of other issues, poverty being one thrown in for the flavour, but not applicable, imho.
Unless, unless…
… these rioters, thieves, arsonists and anarchists have been told that the world OWES them, rather that that THEY owe the world.
Moral values have been lost in the selfish “me first-ness” of those who have been told by the moaning politically correst press that somehow or other THIS great country lets them down.
ALL, imho, the fault of the self-centred, left-wing literati and numerous liberal loony pressure groups. Human rights/civil rights/rights/rights/rights have brought us to this sorry state.
Tottenham – Hackney – Enfield – Croydon – Lewisham – Peckham – Clapham Junction – Deptford – Elephant & Castle - New Cross - East Ham- Brixton – Ealing – and now parts of Birmingham.
I am staggered by all the hate directed towards our former Prime Minister. I believe that Tony Blair made the Iraq decision in good faith and is most certainly NOT a war criminal. If anyone should be tried at the Hague it should be those in the media for totally misrepresenting the information and facts. The media are to blame for fuelling this hatred as it is purely driven by them. (UK)
__________
The greatest and most successful leader the Labour Party has ever had with the courage to fight the Islamist terrorists who really would like to kill us all, and you never hear a good word about him. The herd of independent minds, commentators, activists etc who have never had to make a difficult decision in their lives drown out all debate with their inane chants of war crimes and blood on his hands. Defend him at every chance. I just wish more people would do it. (Glasgow, UK)
__________
Blair was the greatest Labour Prime Minister. It is a disgrace that the party has turned away from his legacy. Shame on Ed Miliband and his so-called ‘new generation’.
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Should the USA, Britain & the rest of the western world seriously consider Sharia Finance, in view of the present financial worries?
There is concern that such is the state of collapse of western capitalism that SOME of our leaders may even be considering adopting "Sharia Finance".
It already exists in the west in various forms and is presently being marketed heavily to non-Muslims.
Is this a slippery slope to Sharia Law?
Sharia law and now Sharia finance are touted by its proponents as the answers to the "evils" of the west.
I don't want ANYTHING Sharia in my country - Britain. And I am not happy that there are already FIVE Sharia courts in our land. I don't recall the government asking us to vote for this in 1997, 2001 or 2005.
But two months after Mr Brown took over from Mr Blair in 2007 Sharia courts were set up in English cities. Perhaps Mr Brown thought he had received subliminal permission from the people to do this when he took over from Mr Blair in a subliminal non-election.
What do YOU think?
VOTE NOW for or against Sharia Finance for the West
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