Plenty of white British actors feel they have to base themselves in the States too.
But this is never referred to as a problem.
Migration Watch
Samuel Jackson recently said American producers and directors prefer hiring non-white Brits as they’re cheaper than their American counterparts and often classically trained.
I don’t work in the entertainment industry and I certainly wouldn’t want to get into an argument with Mr Jackson.
However I’m happy to highlight the similarity between his comments and the arguments I hear used in the UK against eastern Europeans and their employers.
They’re coming over here, undercutting the locals, and taking our jobs.
To hear such comments from such an iconic figure is worrying.
But there must be some truth to what Mr Jackson says.
Globalisation
He’s not a politician. He must have spoken out for a reason.
We know who Samuel Jackson is thanks to Globalisation and US Cultural dominance — I do not begrudge him his success.
I can see how any actor would want to go to the US for their big break.
But equally I don’t see why Jackson shouldn’t identify reasons African American actors are missing out on rôles.
Especially rôles that would help them develop and become bankable box office names as well as Oscar winners and cultural icons — like him.
Football
Let’s have a look another world — Football.
There are many theories as to Why England Lose.
The excellent Simon Kuper of the FT wrote a book about it called – Why England Lose.
Some say that the influx of foreign players to the English Premier League since the 90’s stops most English Players from getting the top level experience that the national team so desperately needs.
As for football managers — I assume the last English manager to win the English League was still Howard Wilkinson for Leeds in 1992.
Adam Curtis’s short 2009 film, Oh Dear, points to parallels between Russian and British propaganda — particularly to George Osborne’s rôle. (after 3 minutes 12 seconds)
KGB Banking Oligarch
Lebedev himself made his money from banking in the late 90’s after having been a London based Soviet spy.
But since “quitting politics” he’s already backed Trump in the US election and now he’s doing the same for the leader of the French National Front.
Double Standards
In the tenth minute of this 40 minute interview Farage asks Le Pen if she feels British Prime Minister Theresa May snubbed her by inviting her rival Emmanuel Macron to Downing Street.
Farage himself never let UKIP enter Le Pen’s nationalist grouping in the European Parliament.
Theresa’s Judgment
In this 30 second clip Le Pen refers to Macron as not being the sort of person she thought Theresa May would want to meet as, in contemporary French politics, he’s the key salesperson of deregulation and Globalisation.
Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage bond over Theresa May’s terrible judgment.
They correctly point out that it makes no sense for Theresa May to say she stands for Brexit and threatening immigrants but then roll out the red carpet for Macron and not Le Pen.
Farage points out that Theresa May wanted nothing to do with Trump until some days after he was elected – despite the supposed similarity in their agendas.
Deregulation
Farage and Trump, unlike Le Pen, strongly back deregulation.
They refer to it as cutting red tape.
But Le Pen talks about protecting French workers from deregulation.
Trump and Farage pretend to rail against corporate power but their loyalties lie with the uber-rich.
Could it be a similar story with Le Pen?
A former top lawyer and daughter of a multimillionaire, her party also needs big cheques but courts and delivers a mainly working class vote.
The only things they really agree on are the threat of open borders and Islamic terrorism.
Economic Patriotism
Le Pen shows solidarity with May and Farage against the vindictiveness of the European Union.
She says the EU wants to punish Britain.
Farage asks her about how she wants to protect French businesses and whether there is room for trade with Britain.
Le Pen says her Economic Patriotism means ensuring French Local Authorities buy from local suppliers.
She also says further measures should be taken to protect french industries from ‘dumping’ – where foreign firms sell their products cheaper because they are able to produce more for less due to weaker labour and environmental laws.
I feel China and Germany are being alluded to here but there’s no mention of British and American exporters and the huge deregulation going on in the USA which they plan to use to boost exports to France.
On the other hand she says she also wants France to “conquer the world” and therefore favours trade.
She concludes that for some industries you need protection but not for all.
This is similar to Steve Bannon’s assertion that he is not a White Nationalist but an Economic Nationalist.
America already had a Buy America policy under Obama.
And while France’s local industries obviously ought to be protected, there are massive inconsistencies in Le Pen’s argument.
But Farage doesn’t point them out.
How can global waves of economic nationalism and protectionism help French exporters?
But we can still sell to each other with minimal taxation, right?
Farage asks if by threatening to impose tariffs on Britain, the EU is ultimately making French workers pay to protect the EU project.
Conversation moves on to talk of migration, borders, Calais and suspending the Schengen agreement.
Brits living in France are reassured that they will not be threatened.
Le Pen says many of the French in London will return to France.
Taxes will be cut as unemployment falls and public spending is cut.
Le Pen says being a Muslim in France is not a problem – it is sectarianism she says she objects to.
She says she is against Islamist Fundamentalism.
When asked about anti-semitism in her party Le Pen says she doesn’t tolerate it and would prefer not to be judged by the words of all her supporters.
Farage says he knows how it feels to be judged by one’s supporters.
Conversation then goes to Putin.
Le Pen argues Russia and US are both as important as each other and that Russia has done a lot of good in Syria.
Farage asks if borrowing from Russian banks compromises her.
Le Pen says she couldn’t borrow elsewhere but that her lender doesn’t choose her policies.
On Trump – Le Pen says she too opposed TTIP and is glad he wants to be a President of the US and not of the world.
Global Revolution
Le Pen says there’s definitely a global revolution going on.
She points out that it is funny that the Anglo Saxon creators of neoliberalism are now the ones who reject it.
Farage says that it was Brussels who created this neoliberalism and not the Anglo Saxons.
Le Pen replies that the Anglo-Saxon world implemented Liberalism and the EU has turned it into Ultra Liberalism.
She says that either way, they are both now on the same side.
This doesn’t feel unlike rival football hooligan firms enjoying a friendly beer before resuming normal service and beating the crap out of each other.
The Spice Girls, The Sex Pistols and even the Jimi Hendrix Experience were all put together by their management teams.
So why not UKIP or the EDL?
Kassam, a self-defining ex-muslim and product of intellectual PC-friendly culture, shifted to the alt-right and now runs Breitbart London which is controlled by Steve Bannon.
Tommy Robinson changed his slightly Irish and double barrelled name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon to head up the English Defence League with an alias taken from a notorious Leeds United football hooligan.
He makes his money running a tanning salon in Luton.
Yes, that’s right.
From people in a multicultural area who pay him money to look less white.
Everybody’s looking for something. And you have to make a living, right?
There’s a beautiful symmetry here.
Where were we?
The French Presidential Election
Farage asks why Le Pen should be French President.
She says because she is profoundly French.
The other candidates just want to represent the Insurance, Banking, and Drug Companies.
Le Pen is asked if, having won the first round, she can win the second round.
She says it is a choice for the French.
It’s no longer a left-right split.
Do we want France to remain France?
She says if voters really want French values such as secularism, equality of race and religion, and not sectarianism, then they will vote for her.
Le Pen says the other candidates have a post national vision.
Are all Americans deserving of the right to healthcare?Yes — Universal healthcare systems should mean free access for all at the point of delivery, focused on protecting public health, and funded via general taxation. No — No-one should ever be forced to pay for services they will never use and no-one should be allowed to use services they could never afford.
America outspends the developed world on health care, but Americans are less healthy https://t.co/mZJX5vLf2X
The US health care debate on CNBC this morning started with EVERYONE AGREEING that EVERY AMERICAN DESERVES COVERAGE.Discussion quickly moved on to whether IMPROVING ACCESS to HEALTHCARE is best achieved by MAKING IT MORE AFFORDABLE.It was then pointed out that the only way you could make healthcare more affordable would be to force all taxpayers to subsidise the health system.Finally there was talk of the injustice of taking money off citizens whose belief systems prevent them from ever using the health system in the first place.
When Sqwawk Box presenter Andrew Sorkin pointed out that this was an absurd line of argument his co-presenter stated that though he agreed with Sorkin he still thought the point of view deserved mentioning.
Check the buzzwords in this recent MSNBC video:
What is the difference between Receiving Affordable Care, Unaffordable Coverage & Insurance, & Access to Healthcare?
What is the difference between Classic Republicans, Democrats and Trump’s people?
Back to the UK
Looks like Brexit has been brought about to Deregulate the Labour Market and get rid of the minimum wage.
Charlotte Hogg, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England (BoE), was appointed the Bank’s Chief Operating Officer in 2013 but never, despite being asked about potential conflicts of interest, disclosed that her brother is a Barclays director.
When she appeared in front of the Treasury Select Committee (TSC) to discuss her recent promotion Hogg said she was well aware of the Bank’s code of conduct — quite apt given she wrote it.
Charlotte Hogg’s mum Sarah Hogg aka Viscountess Hailsham was head of John Major’s Policy Unit in the 1990s — where the controversial Private Finance Initiative (PFI) that has virtually bankrupted the NHS was pioneered.
Here she is speaking at a Business Department Select Committee on Executive Pay and Diversity in the Boardroom.
She opens by stating that she is a member of the Takeover Panel, Lead Independent Director of HM Treasury and a non executive director of John Lewis Partnership (since 2011).
Is it right for public institutions in a so called democracy to be run by such a tiny clique?
Hogg was able to draw on the knowledge and contacts she had built up when pioneering PFI at John Major’s Policy Unit.
Their joint venture eventually became University Partnerships Programme (UPP) — now known to be rip off merchants who market and lobby for increased student debt under the guise of enhanced choice and high quality student experience :
It turns out that Hogg was first recruited for the Chief Operating Officer role at the Bank of England by Virginia Bottomley’s headhunting firm.
Former Health Minister Bottomley is current Health Minster Jeremy Hunt’s Aunt.
So there you are. A very brief tour of the Hogg’s interests.
Below are a few more articles about Charlotte Hogg.
Guardian Piece from 2013 on Charlotte Hogg’s Connections
Donald Trump’s Administration has taken another step toward becoming a full dictatorship by banning the BBC and several other ‘dishonest media’ from the White House’s daily briefing.
The President’s favourites far-right Breitbart, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Network, and even Turkish State Media were allowed to attend yesterday’s off-television briefing.
Which means Trump now respects Turkey’s press more than Britain’s.
Will the BBC really broadcast Trump shaking the Queen’s hand while its own reporters, unlike Turkey’s, are banned from participating in the White House’s Briefings?
Another national humiliation.
What about our Special Relationship?
By Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s own definition the United States is moving the US from democracy toward dictatorship:
As most of the Press have been critical of the White House’s use of alternative facts since day one, the White House Correspondent’s Dinner should be interesting this year:
Going round the room this morning I asked people where they were from.
Krys, from Poland, said he had lived in South America for 24 years. I asked him if he was an Engineer.
“No, I am a missionary.”
Christ, I thought.
“Does that make you a Catholic Priest?”
“Yes. I have been here in London for three weeks. I will work here now. Mainly with people from Latin America.”
I told him about a friend who got into Voodoo in Brazil – with some Christianity and Shamanism thrown in.
Krys says Voodoo is just one of a whole family of similar religions.
We discussed Ayuhuasca. I asked some of the women in the room if they would consider giving it all up and moving to the forest. There wasn’t too much interest.
Next to Krys was Ana Lucia. She’s from near Milan and is off to South Sudan to help with the famine. Krys told me that Ana Lucia used to live in Brazil too. They were very near each other. She was an accountant for an NGO. A missionary in her own right. Funny that. Having two of them next to each other. Especially as I’d never met one before. At least not in class. Actually there was that one from Taiwan the other day. She was off to help kids with HIV in Kenya.
Some good people out there!
Cycling back through West Hampstead I got stuck in Storm Doris. Nearly got knocked off the bike. Saw cute girl I used to go to school with. Still looking good.
Then more interesting chats with another student. Talking about arguments used in court cases to get your guilty client off.
Apparently the thing to do is to drag the case out then tell the judge he made a minor procedural error. Aim to get a retrial and then rely on the state’s desperation to get a quick conviction — that should get the conviction cut.
Harrumph. Given that no-one actually reads this blog it will come as no surprise that my attempts at conventional blogging are to be abandoned in favour of a more relaxed stream of consciousness perhaps in line with whatever I was doing a couple of years ago when I first started posting blogs on this website.
I recall the first few controversial posts all of which were taken down in November 2015 mainly due to the amount of grief I got for them.
Grief I now view as an achievement — at least people read them!
In September the Radical Housing Network revealed that government money originally earmarked for protecting vulnerable tenants from unscrupulous landlords is being used to fund deportation raids.
The President was rude to Jewish and African American reporters yesterday, uttered untruths about his election results, and was combative when asked about about his campaign’s contact with Russia.
He also contradicted himself over the sacking of senior adviser Mike Flynn.
Trump accuses all journalists of issuing fake news — consistent with his senior advisor Steve Bannon’s statements that the Press are the enemy.
April Ryan
Trump tells journalist April Ryan he would be happy to meet with the Congressional Black Caucus. He asks her if she’s friends with the Black Caucus and if she wants to set up the meeting. Even though he is showing interest in arranging a meeting many would regard this to be racist because of way Trump speaks to the reporter. Asking her if she wants to arrange the meeting implies he views her as a civil rights campaigner and not a proper journalist.
According to Dale Purves what we hear is often determined by our Darwinian programming which filters out sounds that don’t help us reproduce.
Purves points to the McGurk Effect:
How does this apply to modern politics?
As mentioned in a previous post Lord Ashcroft has released Hopes and Fears based on polling he did in the US 2016 Presidential election.
In it he publishes a graph of how voters from different points in the political spectrum responded to controversial questions such as whether Barack Obama was born outside the USA or if Hillary Clinton is ‘culpable for murder’.
Here are some of the results:
Given the McGurk Effect, it’s not hard to see how easily clickbait, fake news and filter bubbles feed off our predictable irrationality and confirmation bias.
This cognitive perfect storm creates blindspots in society that allow vast chunks of the population to ditch their own interests and plump for Trump.
The current US President once said he could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot someone and he wouldn’t lose a single vote.
By reading the crowd and making the right noises, Trump has been able to say and do anything and still win.
The McGurk Effect doesn’t just apply to Trump’s high visibility and invincibility but also to the powerlessness of his voters.
Steve Bannon now supposedly runs America on behalf of the American People but very little about him is known. Bannon may have helped Trump tap into voters’ fears and anxieties but will he help deliver a better economy in time for re-election in 2020?
In an age of populism and demagoguery Bannon and Trump have somehow ended up delivering for Goldman Sachs — the ultimate con.
Trump, May, & Farage deliver the anti-establishment messages but it’s Steve Bannon, Rupert Murdoch and Goldman Sachs who really benefit.
Shelves could be full of cheap American meat in UK supermarkets within two years.
[contentcards url=”http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/27/american-beef-industry-sees-brexit-as-big-stakes-opportunity.html”]
I came across Transatlantic Aliens in the bookshop today.
The blurb referred to the cultural contribution made by Europeans who moved to the US in the 1930s and 1940s.
By looking at how celebrated outsiders such as Theodor Adorno, Simone de Beauvoir and Vladimir Nabokov experienced American life, Will Norman celebrates their transformation of alienation into novel ways of interpreting the modern world.
Given President Trump’s recent Executive Order indefinitely banning all refugees from Syria from entering the US, the book — which came out in October — couldn’t be more relevant.
This is an excellent blog post by author Will Norman on the need to not demonise foreigners — written just days after President Trump won the 2016 US Election:
Norman starts by saying, “These are dark days for Cosmopolitanism.”
Dark days indeed.
Theresa May told the Conservative Party conference in October that a Citizen of the World is a Citizen of Nowhere.
Following Amber Rudd’s speech about naming and shaming firms who hire too many foreign workers — the Pound dropped like a stone.
One interpretation of Cosmopolitanism is that the Cosmopolis, the world state, is an ideal state in which citizens must live their lives regardless of local constraints. This is a morally driven universe which comprises of international solidarity above all else.
I do not feel this is Mrs May’s interpretation. Although English Culture is itself a mix of so many influences, the incorporation of habits, customs and languages from around the world makes the PM squirm.
In Mrs May’s worldview, the more that Cosmopolitans feel they have in common with outsiders, the more readily they distinguish themselves from fellow British citizens and the less loyalty they show.
Tory donor Lord Ashcroft commissioned a study into the US election which referred to Cosmopolitan Activists — 25% of whom are less than 24 years old — the majority of whom believe in gun control, government regulation, green energy, same sex marriage, immigration, multiculturalism, social liberalism and feminism.
There are so many contradictions in what our politicians now say that there’s no fun in spotting inconsistencies.
Now that they’ve lost power, maybe here are two former Chancellors whose words we can actually trust.
Here is George Osborne on how the Government has prioritised controlling immigration over the economy:
And Ken Clarke on how Enoch Powell would have been surprised that the Tory party is now ‘mildly’ anti immigrant:
Where do we go from here?
I hope there is more public participation in the debate surrounding the terms of Brexit.
If not then commission hungry lobbyists will run the show and sell Britain into feudalism for a fraction of what it is really worth.
The British Parliamentary system is not equipped to override inherent conflicts of interest – if this isn’t fixed immediately this will lead to Britain’s downfall.
How to solve such a problem?
Strategic Noise. We have an accountability problem. Certain people are getting away with passing lots of favourable legislation because there is no independent scrutiny or oversight.
Better reporting of parliamentary, local government and international affairs would do a lot to warn people of what is coming in a structured way that allows for organised civil responses that go beyond attending protests.
The Government is well equipped to rely on and perpetuate bureaucracy – the rest of us need to start catching up.
Too many people are keeping their knowledge to themselves.
The more we know about what is actually happening up and down the country and about the political process the more we can more meaningfully get involved.
Will political parties suddenly adjust to allow new ideas?
Or will they do what they can to protect the status quo?
At yesterday’s press conference May talked about NATO and ISIS but chose not to mention the bonfire of rights and regulations and the deeper privatisation of NHS services and imminent entry of GM food, pesticides, cloned meat and growth hormones in UK supermarkets if Britain increases trade with America.
The Prime Minister talked about family ties and kinship when referring to the Special Relationship with the US but conveniently forgot, despite posing in front of the Churchill bust, that Churchill was passionately pro EU and that the English language that Britain apparently shares with the USA is derived from French, German and Scandinavian countries that happen to also be in the EU.
Allowing deeper co-operation with the US is a great idea on many levels but at what price? Allowing free movement of workers between the UK and the US could be even more catastrophic for public services than the unpreparedness with which UK allowed almost unlimited EU expansion and other commitments from 2004.
Just as Trump has banned citizens from poorer Muslim countries from seeking political asylum in the US, UK is now telling Trump how important it is to have a strong EU and NATO while telling EU citizens they’re no longer welcome.
So May gets Trump to help her stop EU citizens working in the UK and begs Turkey to stop victims of Islamic extremism and various bombing campaigns from living and working in the EU.
Looks like we’re going back to the same Ronnie and Maggie hypocritical neo-liberal logic of supporting Israeli and South African Apartheid while telling Communist countries to tear down walls and open up in the name of freedom.
Despite all this grassroots sentiment would the Tory Party Strategists still gift a seat to UKIP?
To many such pragmatism could be a step too far.
From Nasty to Neo-Nazi
In the eyes of many this could shift the Tories from the Nasty Party to the Neo-Nazi Party
Dramatic Turnaround
As for Stoke Central itself, wouldn’t it be something for them to lose their Old Etonian former shadow cabinet member to the Victoria and Albert Museum and to replace him with a UKIP leader who to many is nothing more than a neo-fascist thug?
Nuttall once stood for the Conservatives in Bootle, his hometown, before becoming a UKIP MEP.
The following story appeared in yesterday’s Evening Standard in London.
Should you find yourself in Stoke this week the Repertory Theatre is staging : One Man Two Guvnors
And if 300 million Americans have suddenly become eligible to work in the UK then does that mean the US intelligence agencies will now treat Britain as if it is home soil?
The extradition treaties are already very one-way. Will we now be potentially surveilled and taken out for tweeting about Trump or Theresa?
Given her authoritarian views and performances at PMQs , I don’t trust Mrs May to defend this country one inch.
Donald Trump — George III in reverse
Mad grandson of obscure German migrant uses force to do battle with a distant land to which he stakes vague claim.
This should bring in GM Food, Cheap Meat, dodgy Pharmaceuticals — and the right to bear arms against tyrannous governments!
Not that things will ever come to that, of course!
If it is the case that she is knowingly undermining the safety of the British public then surely she should be tried for treason.
Bradley / Chelsea Manning was lucky to have had his / her sentence commuted by Barack Obama last week. Could Theresa May be closer than any other PM in the history of Parliament to being hanged, gassed, or made to sit in an electric chair?
Brexit Mayden
She’s since become PM and launched semantic warfare on the British public by using inane soundbytes ranging from “Brexit means Brexit” through to “Red, White & Blue Brexit”.
There have been various other versions including clean, hard, fast, slow, smooth, and soft Brexit with messy and technicolor on the side.
Theresa Maybe
Either way, the Economist strongly implied she’s a ditherer when they referred to her as Theresa Maybe
Financial Eyes would place Mrs May’s approach somewhere between that of Goldilocks ( someone’s been eating my Brexit ) and of The Emperor’s New Clothes ( too much thigh and not enough sleeve).
Having finally declared Britain is definitely exiting the Single Market, the PM has told the Financial Times that she’ll meet Donald Trump this Friday and sing the praises of the EU.
A few weeks ago Financial Eyes caught up with Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell for Real Media and asked for his views on the government’s approach to Brexit:
Farage himself reckons this is just the start of a Global Revolution.
Winners & Losers
Given that populism, anti-globalisation, autonomy, independence and revolution were so frequently invoked during both the Brexit vote and the US election, it is very telling that the new rulers are all from the very minority that benefited the most from globalisation in the first place.
Will they govern as benign dictators or will they do everything they can to make life as hard as they possibly can for everyday Brits and Americans in a way that the European Union, European Central Bank (ECB), Hillary Clinton, and the Federal Reserve would never have dreamed of?
Asset Strippers Carry Out 2 Coup d’états
It’s rarely mentioned that Nigel Farage’s first job after leaving school was for criminal US junk bond outfit Drexel Burnham. This is mentioned in the comments section of this rather revelatory article.
Looks like UK is in line to be asset stripped at a rather more rapid rate than usual with Nigel Farage leading the charge.
Interesting times
Should be quite an interesting week this week with the UK Supreme Court ruling on whether Parliament be allowed a say over Brexit followed by Mrs May’s trip to Trump.
Whatever will they talk about?
Tax Haven & Trade Deals
Chancellor Phillip Hammond has spoken about cutting UK corporation tax to minimal levels and Brexiteers are talking up the US – UK trade deal.
Hammond himself has become personally wealthy doing business with the NHS. An investigator told Financial Eyes that Hammond was also involved with super scammers Enron.
Just as Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt set up a business called Hot Courses of which his half is being sold at the moment, reputedly for £15m, his aunt Virginia Bottomley also a former Health Secretary is said to have had a high ranking position at the British Council at a time when they were his biggest client.
NHS
Reduced tax income will defund the National Health Service (NHS) and any trade deal with the US will let health insurance firm United Health get an even deeper hold over the UK health sector than it already has.
Pharma and Genetically Engineered Food
Pharmaceutical and Food Regulation will of course be liberalised to allow cheap genetically engineered american meat into US supermarkets as well as profitable drugs with several dodgy side effects.
America First
As so little of what Trump says turns out to be true and his America First policy will involve cutting back on so much trade with other countries, it looks like his friend Nigel Farage may end up being called in to help flog the remainder of GB Plc.
Game Over
With Sterling at relatively low levels, cheap firms are ripe to have their assets stripped.
Special Relationship
This from Tax Campaigner Richard Murphy:
Nobody in the States wanted to be seen with Trump this weekend, but Theresa May’s rushing to see him. She may not find a queue
Now that OPEC are cutting production to stop Oil prices from falling through the floor, will Mr. Trump & Theresa May usher in an age of Peak Renewable?
The American Legislative Exchange Council are in the ascendant. Most Brits don’t even know who they are.
But they hold the real clout around here.
Trump Aide: Japanese Internment Camps are Precedent for a Muslim Registry
White America rejects American Values
Trump voters claim not to be racist but many voted to deport Latinos and target Muslims.
In the following film one educated Trump voter claims rhetoric about rapidly building walls and expelling immigrants is “imprudent” but ultimately in the right direction.
The women claiming not to be racist refer to ‘rugged individualism’, not accepting ‘handouts from the government’ (Universal Healthcare) and sit next to posters promoting guns while talking about having to be ‘on guard’ around people of other races.
The same types of megalomaniac are now running the UK.
Vice President Elect Mike Pence is a member of ALEC, The American Legislative Exchange Council.
They have links in the UK. Liam Fox and Dan Hannan have spoken at their conferences. Dangerous lot.
Most Brits don’t even know who they are. But they hold the real clout around here.
Linked to LIBOR. Is there something we’re not being told?
At the end of this article, The Times claims the government is turning to Post War tactics to ease the housing crisis and hit its construction target.
The housing minister in 1945 was Nye Bevan, who built the NHS.
Will the Times now nostalgically call for the ejection of private companies and re-nationalisation of the NHS — as a return to post war tactics?
Hmm. All these contradictions. So much engineered confusion. How do we even manage to get out of bed in the morning?
Will Corbyn and McDonnell get treated with respect if they frame their NHS reforms as a return to post war tactics and not as an attack on the City of London?
The Financial Conduct Authority has accused Sunday Telegraph journalists Ben Martin and James Quinn of attempting to launder RBS’s reputation despite several reports by Buzzfeed, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and BBC Newsnight, of RBS’s rampant and widespread criminal behaviour.
RBS knowingly missappropriated its SME customers’ assets to improve its capital ratio and meet regulatory requirements in what the banks executives themselves referred to as their own ‘dash for cash’.
The Daily Telegraph has form when it comes to lying to its readers. Former chief political correspondent Peter Oborne quit in early 2015 over its unwillingness to report accurately on HSBC fraud.
Martin and Quinn’s piece this morning gives RBS a headline and a platform with which to pretend that the GRG allegations are all false despite overwhelming evidence that RBS knowingly defrauded its SME clients.
The FCA say they are not in a position to comment on GRG till they publish their findings.
When that will be remains anyone’s guess.
So we have the ugly prospect of two sets of state employees continuing to score points against each other by withholding and ignoring the truth about their own involvement in withholding and ignoring the truth.
The mind boggles at the unfathomable depths to which these civil servants will plumb in order to prevent justice and transparency and protect the shadiest part of the state’s fraudulent investment portfolio.
Is it morally right to cannibalise your own citizens if you do it via the people’s de facto sovereign wealth fund?
Innocent British businessmen were sold ‘protection’ on loans they took out with the bank but unknown to them the small print stated they were on the wrong side of an unlimited downside spread bet with the bank in which they had unwittingly remortgaged the roofs over their families’ heads.
Given that fraud is the banking industry’s business model all this should not come as a surprise.
Carney’s resignation announcement will come just weeks after Amber ‘Ayatollah’ Rudd announced a migrant crackdown at the 2016 post-Brexit Tory Conference.
Rudd has since backtracked on plans to force firms to publish lists of migrant workers.
It was joked at the time that Rudd would be personally accompanying the border agency for its dawn raids on Threadneedle Street.
The government is currently in disarray over its post Brexit plans with May and Rudd keen to out-Brexit the Brexiteers on xenophobia.
Chancellor Hammond is the only one who is sticking to his guns about making the economy work but has his work cut out convincing May and Rudd to ease up on Carney and on their crusade to make life as uncomfortable for foreign workers and their employers as possible.
Not since 2001 have the Tories been in such disarray.
It is unfortunate that their friends in the media are doing so much to shield them from paying for the consequences of their actions.
The political journalists that allow the Tories to get away this are committing treason.
‘New emails have been found by the FBI, which the agency is reviewing.
Clinton’s aides are demanding more details of the discovery’.
Superhedging.
Where’s the story?
Takes a special skill to say something without really saying anything.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Hillary could be more evil than your average former first lady.
But even by UK standards, this is a storm in a teacup.
Show me the dirt already!
The headline says ‘Clinton rocked as FBI renews email inquiry’.
But nothing substantial in the story. Really. Nothing .
Could this lose Hillary the race?
The election’s 11 days away.
I haven’t checked the other papers but it looks like this is a global push to introduce new doubt into Clinton’s candidacy.
John Podesta’s name’s mentioned.
He’s Hillary’s campaign chairman.
I saw his name earlier this week.
Capitalist Democrat ‘Greens’
A pro-fossil fuel activist sent me a story about how the green movement bullies anyone who disagrees with them.
Podesta is that kind of Green.
Forcing everyone to go green so that he can get paid.
Much as Wall Street and the City of London see mis-selling as the business model.
I must say I’ve come across some nutters in the green movement.
I’m sure they’d say the same about me — many were intolerant of debate.
It’s no surprise these types of greens are heading up Hillary’s campaign.
Al Gore is their most prominent member.
Even ten years ago, he was reputed to be making so much money he simply couldn’t afford to run for President.
The capitalist Greens’ sense of entitlement is rivalled only by that of their rivals, the sceptics / deniers like Lord Matt Ridley, who writes for the Times.
Ridley got quite angry this week when I told him that I heard he regularly spikes stories and has headlines changed at the Times to push his ‘hard pollution’ agenda.
After asking me where I’d heard all this (the public domain), and setting his climate-sceptic twitter attack dogs on me, he sent me a link about John Podesta.
Every word of this is untrue. I am no denier, I’ve never done any of these things and i have “no hard pollution agenda”. You’ve been lied to https://t.co/oOYFwmx07t
But he doesn’t think this warming is particularly significant.
One of his buddies sent me a video in which Ridley, an Eton-educated hereditary peer, claims burning fossil fuel produces the CO2 which we desperately need to save the planet.
I am not joking.
This happened just a few hours after hearing him deny being a denier.
I was even told that the term climate denier has now been outlawed by Associated Press.
That’s right, according to Ridley, just as in John Stauber’s classic 1994 book on PR, “Toxic Sludge is Good For You!!!”, we should be burning more fossil fuels if we are serious about surviving as a species.
When views like these are circulated by Times columnists and Lords, it is no wonder we are heading straight to armageddon.
(Clarification: Ridley was not ‘awarded’ his title – he is a hereditary peer.)
Another Tory Peer and Times columnist, Lord Finkelstein, usually manages to sound quite sensible on most things but even he told me that Ridley is not a denier:
@financialeyes Thank you. It’s just that a columnist doesn’t write or determine splash stories. Also Matt isn’t a denier. It’s very hard for
It’s true that the Times is owned by Rupert Murdoch who has backed Brexit and UKIP in his Sun Newspaper, and done more than any other press baron to bring about the rise of the American Tea Party which has led to Donald Trump.
Should it be a surprise that we are on the road to Armageddon?
Given his animosity toward Podesta and climate ‘alarmists’, it’s obvious that Ridley, like Murdoch, is a Donald Trump and Brexit man.
Knowing that people like this are running opinion forming publications and shaping key legislation, even a child would spot the undemocratic factors that bring megalomaniacs like Trump to power.
We are being run by a suicidal death cult who are quite prepared to take the entire planet under.
In the Mahabharatha the new King Yudhithistra was persuaded to bet the entire kingdom on a rigged game of dice.
The likes of Trump, Murdoch and Ridley have decided that they too will take us under.
Who knows why?
An unresolved sense of inadequacy?
Uber ‘workers’
Next to the Hillary article is a piece on how ‘self employed’ Uber drivers are now ‘workers’ under UK employment law.
Are the Guardian right behind the Uber drivers in their fight for regulation in a deregulated precarious industry?
Or campaigning against the entire Uber business model which pits Black Cab drivers, in London, who have spent 3-4 years studying ‘the Knowledge’ to know their way around London’s streets, against increasingly underemployed deregulated Uber drivers.
The climate angle of having more drivers on the road remains unexplored.
As do the employment implications of driverless cars.
Instead this Guardian story focuses exclusively on employment law.
Greenpeace
The bottom of the page contains a Greenpeace fundraising advert.
‘Be coldhearted.’
Encouraging Guardian readers to leave Greenpeace money in their wills.
Cutting family out of wills in favour of NGOs and polar bears sounds like a radical left wing increased wealth tax.
As a trust themselves, the Guardian owe their existence to private wealth.
The back cover of the paper features an advert for a Peugeot SUV.
The SUV is aptly driving through a rather large puddle.
‘CONTROL BUILT IN’ reads the slogan.
As the SUV leaves the back page puddle behind, it is about to smash into the ‘Be cold hearted.’ Greenpeace slogan over on the front page.
(When fully spread out and at ease, just as in politics and banking, the back and front become the left and right, and sit quite comfortably next to each other, agreeing on far more than on what they disagree.)
And then it will career into the Polar Bear itself.
Red gas guzzling French SUV sponsored by Total, another oil company, murders cuddly innocent furry white polar bear.
Shocking stuff.
Like the way Trump has successfully attacked Hillary from the left.
CONTROL BUILT IN vs Be coldhearted.
‘Be controlled by the viagra-popping driverless racist rapist Trump / Clinton machine!’
Greenpeace on the front and Total on the back.
Says it all.
You can’t escape the logic of the game – however creative your imagination.
The Guardian continues to walk the line between climate denial and warmongering ‘green’ colonialism.
Sir Michael Fallon has been unmasked as one of the UK’s biggest security threats.
The FT has dug up a document addressed to the Defence Minister by General Sir Richard Barrons, the recently-retired head of the country’s Joint Forces Command, in which Fallon was told “There is no military plan to defend the UK in a conventional conflict.”
But instead of directly responding to this weekend’s revelations, Fallon has taken the rather bizarre step of claiming the UK will block an EU army for as long as it remains a member.
It’s hard to imagine why Fallon would not be ok with an EU Army that fights ISIS and patrols EU borders.
He says that NATO already looks after this.
It is known that Fallon has had substantial dealings with the private sector over the years.
Questions now have to be asked about Fallon’s judgement, his loyalty to the country, and his personal business interests.
Is he simply feathering his own nest or, like with Zac Goldsmith in the 2016 London mayoral election, could it be that he has gone completely insane?
In this radio interview after the London Mayoral election, Fallon refuses to backtrack on his comments that London Mayor Sadiq Khan is a security threat who ought not to be trusted with Londoners’s safety:
Until he addresses these fears, widespread concern that Sir Michael Fallon may have become the single biggest security threat to the UK looks increasingly justified.
Two groups of EU countries are banding together to call for stricter internal and external border controls and an end to austerity at the first full post-Brexit EU meeting in Bratislava on Friday.
Club Med
Last Friday in Athens, the Club Med Countries told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that austerity is killing the EU and that they want stronger border control to deal with the ‘Migrant Crisis’.
Tax-avoidance-as-a-service (TAAAS) is Dublin’s most famous export.
The Irish government long ago designed Irish law to allow global corporations to split, funnel,and park their profits to avoid paying tax on most of their global profits.
Whoever pays the bills around Dublin likes things as they are.
Yes, a country — as a customer — can be sued by a company.
In that sense Holland — like London — are a bit like a global bailiff.
They want corporations to go ‘treaty shopping’ and arrange their legal affairs to be able to sue countries from Amsterdam.
Visegrad Group
Meanwhile, the Visegrad Group are calling for further recognition of distinct national identities, borders, and Christianity in the face of the ‘migrant crisis’.
Having transitioned from Communism to the neo-liberal market state it looks like many are interested in revisiting the age before communism in which countries were grouped together as empires under a strong leader.
Andrew Marr wrote a piece about the Visegrad Group in the Sunday Times yesterday. All a bit scary!
If ARM really are as world-beating as they sound then surely patriotic Government Ministers like Business Secretary Greg Clark, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, or even Gaffe-Prone Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson would have intervened to protect hard-won UK sovereignty and stand up for GB PLC.
Think Again.
PM Theresa May, former Business Secretary Sajid Javid, and new Chancellor Philip Hammond have a fondness for referring to Britain as being “open for business”.
But what does this actually mean? Is everything up for grabs? Are there no limits?
Judging by this week’s newspapers, the answer is mixed.
For us cynics who believe the UK government can’t help selling everything and anything — the tide may be starting to turn.
TTIP
Following the BREXIT vote the EU-US Trade agreement also known as The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is said to be floundering.
At the G20 this weekend the official communique stated that Globalisation needs to be sold to the masses. Rising populism threatens Big Business — Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump are a step too far.
There is a bit of a paradox at play here.
Businesses and governments are supposed to serve both consumers and citizens.
But has government gotten so into bed with business that it now fears a backlash?
And what of these populist candidates?
Some of them — especially the Tea Party — are funded by Big Business.
Alt-Left
I remember hearing Webster Tarpley in 2008 saying that the only way to get at Obama was to attack him from the left.
That is what we’ve seen played out over the last 8 years.
In the US Big Business has got behind the most extreme side of the Republican Party. The same model has been exported to the UK.
The FT ran an editorial on Monday in which they actually referred to the limits of deregulation. I thought I was hallucinating:
Hannan spearheaded the Brexit campaign from Brussels.
He famously surprised Newsnight presenter Evan Davis the day after the Brexit vote by saying he didn’t think Brexit meant an end to free movement of labour.
Why would a Tory MEP as passionately devoted to both EU-US relations and Brexit be prepared to go on TV straight after an immigration-dominated campaign and say he believes in free movement of labour?
Foreign Firms
And where does this leave us in relation to the foreign takeover of another UK firm?
Foreign firms are obviously in favour of free movement of labour but not that keen on regulation.
So if the UK deregulates even further in favour of corporations and away from employees, then I can’t see the Japanese or any other government complaining.
Here is an article from today by George Monbiot on the current state of play re: TTIP and its ugly Canadian sister CETA.
For anyone interested in finding out more about TTIP & CETA there is a facebook group, a website, and a couple of mailing lists for general trade issues and for organising actions.
Strange to see FT’s resident Bilderberger Martin Wolf attacking University reform last week.
Anthony Seldon is often quoted in the Sunday Times as an Education and Happiness Expert.
He is Blair and Cameron’s official biographer and believes in “student experience”.
Student Experience and happiness are code words for ‘utility’ — an imaginary (and subjective) system for comparing and quantifying human preferences.
Just as the term ‘financial engineering’ was created to make Harvard and Princeton Physics graduates feel better about selling their souls to the devil as they became money-grabbing Wall Street ‘Quants’ — so too are the words happiness, well-being, mindfulness and even meditation now being deployed to not just morally but also scientifically justify the elimination of opportunity to all but those who can afford it.
Seldon’s dad Arthur Seldon set up the Institute of Economic Affairs and was a founder member of New Labour’s favourite think tank — Demos.
After the recent “Brexit” coup d’état the May junta has decided to do some housecleaning and give new home secretary Amber Rudd the wiggle room her status demands.
Vaz, as Chairmen of the Home Affairs Select Committee, wielded enormous influence overseeing current Prime Minister Theresa May’s paedophile cover-ups throughout her 6 years as Home Secretary.
Child Sex Abuse
Midlands based researchers and disability rights campaigners first informed me of the wide reaching implications of having Vaz chair the home affairs select committee which was particularly lacklustre in its desire to investigate or protect vulnerable young people from Child Sexual Abuse.
It has long been speculated that there was dirt on Vaz. His defence of Greville Janner in 1992 showed he kept dubious company.
Many find it suspicious that he was a Council solicitor for Margaret Hodge (another Blairite former chair of a sensitive Select Committee) during her controversial time at Islington and at Richmond council during the period of much paedophile activity at Elm House, Barnes.
Brexit
A former Minister for Europe, perhaps his strongly pro-European views counted against him.
Although Amber Rudd campaigned for Remain she bears all the hallmarks of the pragmatist — more so even than Vaz.
Either way, time has been called on Vaz’s tenure. There must be more dirt on him. I wonder when or if it will come out.
Next up
Prepare for speculation on which media-friendly MP will now be brought in next — how much for Chuka Ummuna?
With funding from several Health Trusts, Universities, and Research Institutes, the £650m Crick Institute is a registered charity and will have 1000 scientists and 250 support staff by the end of the year.
The Crick — Europe’s largest Biomedical Research Centre — will be composed of 120 research groups comprising of around 10 scientists each.
The Crick will build up partnerships with pharmaceutical and biotech firms to translate its discoveries into commercial products.
A partnership with GlaxoSmithKline is already in operation.
The Crick Director, Sir Paul Nurse, says he hopes to create constructive “scientific anarchy”.
The Medical Research Centre and Cancer Research UK will provide most of the the Crick’s £130m a year running costs, with smaller contributions from Wellcome Trust, Imperial College, Kings College, & University College London (UCL).
Questions
Does this institute have an ethical code?
Is it engaged in Synthetic Biology and Genetic Engineering?
Is it public or private? Is it subject to FOI laws?
Will it prioritise transparency over commercial confidentiality?
What is The Crick?
Cancer-curing charity, publicly funded institute, or amoral driver of shareholder value?
Here is a Twitter reaction to the Crick. Glad I am not the only one who finds it scary.
The Crick Institute looks like the kind of place zombie apocalypses begin or simian overlords rise from. Steering clear.
As well as offering free masters, iPads, and Premier League Football tickets, Universities are also incentivising overseas students to recruit their spouses and siblings.
The Sunday Times editorial wonders how long before students at Oxford are offered action figures of Cecil Rhodes and, in the case of St Andrews, the chance to marry a member of the royal family.
It claims that “Universities are now so desperate for custom they could teach supermarkets a thing or two about sales.”
Surely it would be more appropriate to compare universities with banking cartels.
The Sunday Times claim a leaked document has revealed that David Cameron and Oliver Letwin wanted to “cap taxes for the banks”.
According to the leaked memo Letwin endorsed Cameron’s plans for an “aggregated City tax take” which would have prevented the government from increasing the banking levy.
The cap on the banking levy was proposed in the early days of the coalition, but was blocked by the Liberal Democrats.
The memo reveals that Letwin suggested that a cap on taxes should have started with a “small club” of high street banks belonging to the British Bankers Association.
“If this worked, we could move on to the hedge funds”, Letwin added.
When asked about the bank tax proposal yesterday Letwin claimed to have “absolutely no recollection”.
Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.
Handing €1.1 trillion of public money to ANONYMOUS bankers with no publicly available audit trail is an act so corrupt as to be beyond comprehension.
Yet that is what has happened to residents of that well known museum — the European Union.
Inventing Money
The European Central Bank, owner of the world’s third biggest money printing machine — behind the Federal Reserve’s and the People’s Bank of China’s — has already printed and distributed the best part of a trillion Euros to private financial institutions in exchange for various bonds over a two year period.
In November 2014 just as they started what became known as their Quantitative Easing (ECB QE) programme, I asked them to publicly state exactly which bonds they were printing money to buy.
Seeing as they were spending billions of euros of public money per month during a time of extreme austerity – it felt normal that EU citizens be told how the money was being spent.
Disclosure
The only information the public had been told at that time was that the ECB were buying repackaged bank loans (Covered Bonds) and Asset Backed Securities (ABSs) in order to stop deflation and maintain inflation at 2%.
But the question remains: What happened to the money?
Groupthink
Bizarrely the woman who runs the European Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, has a reputation for being a fair-minded adjudicator.
This week the Irish papers portrayed O’Reilly as a friend of transparency who had rebuked the Irish Central Bank and the ECB for not publishing their correspondence during the Irish Bailouts of 2010.
If only those newspapers had known how O’Reilly has sided with commercial confidentiality and non-disclosure of the multibillion Euro QE recipients.
O’Reilly ruled in favour of the ECB without once consulting me — the complainant — to find out why I had brought the case or to let me challenge the groupthink logic of her flawed judgment.
Too little, too late
Ironically on the date of the ruling (18th July 2016) the ECB itself announced that another slice of its QE programme, the Corporate Bond Purchase Programme, would publish its ISIN codes.
This is a screenshot of the paywalled Financial Times story with the announcement about the new stance on ISIN codes.
How funny that I had to wait 18 months to get a definitive ‘no’ on receiving the ISIN codes for the Covered Bond and ABS QE programme, only for the Corporate Bond Purchase Programme to publish its ISIN codes on the very same day.
A Pyrrhic Victory perhaps?
Time will Tell.
Corruptissima respublica, plurimae leges
The most corrupt state, the most laws – Tacitus
My feeling is that the ECB don’t want to the public to know how much they are protecting the very same German financiers that benefited from the ECB’s imposition of austerity, deregulation and privatisation policies in southern Europe.
Just as the IRA and Baader Meinhoff are known for their politically inspired terror campaigns in the 1970s so has Deutsche Pfandbriefe exported financial terrorism throughout Europe from its tax avoiding, financial engineering Dublin Headquarters as of the early 2000’s when it re-domiciled to save cash.
ECB QE and commercial confidentiality for public money are the very definition of double standards and, in this case, perpetuate the myth that North Europeans are honest and that everyone else is corrupt.
I appreciate that this is not something many people are willing to accept – such is the scale of our programming.
Just as with PPP / PFI in the UK, commercial confidentiality and financial engineering remain the respectable face of corporate fascism and fraud.
Jeremy Corbyn delighted Remain Boss, Roland Rudd, with his multiple TV appearances & speeches in the run-up to the EU referendum vote.
Rudd admitted this on Bloomberg TV two days before the vote.
The exact quote is at 3m 37s:
Yet Angela Eagle, Hillary Benn, Chuka Umunna, & Seema Malhotra have repeatedly claimed Corbyn did not do enough.
They can’t all be right.
Iraq Cover Up
So many Labour MPs voted for the Iraq war, Tuition Fees, and for airstrikes on Syria — they all wanted Corbyn out of the way before last week’s Chilcot Iraq Inquiry.
Therefore ‘Blairites’ blame Corbyn for their own inability to defend the EU.
Disdain for Democracy
New Labour’s disdain for democracy becomes clearest when nominating successors.
Coming up with a challenger to Corbyn, has put them in total disarray.
Indecision
How ironic that — given their individual ambition — New Labour dinosaurs are incapable of leadership or collective decision-making.
What Next?
What will they do next to persuade the country to vote for them?
More Project Fear?
No Charisma
Angela Eagle is an experienced parliamentarian but has no charisma and was never more than a junior minister.
Stitch-Up
Her wooden PMQ’s performance in December 2015 against the equally wooden George Osborne was obviously stage-managed with both sides’s lines seemingly written by the same team.
Perhaps a clue lies in the fact that Angela Eagle shared the same Pro-EU platform with Roland Rudd’s sister Amber Rudd in the week before the Referendum.
