— Ranjan Balakumaran (@financialeyes) May 22, 2020
This clip from Sky TV ends by saying that the public mood has changed and so has government policy.
And what is the chief driver of the public mood?
Opinion forming newspapers and television channels.
And Facebook:
In this interview from yesterday Mark Zuckerberg says he has taken down hundreds of thousand of posts that he disagrees with and that he expects an ‘arms race’ in the next US election.
He was referring to outside interference, but who’s to say he won’t pick a winner and act accordingly?
FB’s business model allows candidates to spread disinformation so long as they pay.
So the biggest threat to democracy comes from Zuck himself.
Page Two of today’s Guardian tells us that we’re all organ donors now.
Under such a rule detainees in UK immigration centres, prisons and mental homes could have their organs harvested by the UK for profit.
The state could balance its books by overcharging its human supply chain (patients, migrants, prisoners) for food, accommodation and, er, medical costs.
Would the market price for organs be determined by fit or by how hard they are to find?
Either way, this is the work of the notorious Behavioural Insights team, also known as the Nudge Unit.
All very reminiscent of Jonathan Swift’s 1729 Modest Proposal in which he suggests a solution to hunger could be simply to eat poor kids.
Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the Publick,
Local authority easements brought in under the coronavirus bill coupled with the enormous rise in child poverty over the last ten years mean we are already on that road.
Eugenics and depopulation are currently en vogue so why not just legalise cannibalism and be done with it?
Where there is behaviour and decision-making there have to be incentives.
Toxic Nudge is Good for You
Here’s a Nudge Unit paper on boosting organ market supply chains.
It all takes on a sinister dimension in the current corona climate.
As the blog says, behavioural economics and ‘what works’ means doing what works, as opposed to following common sense or tradition.
In the corona climate this might have worked if we had evidence Brits would automatically socially distance and stop the spread.
But we didn’t.
We had no stats and no data.
So the ‘scientific’ advice was bullshit.
But with non-scientists and unidentified members of the SAGE committee (Dominic Cummings? ) appearing to outnumber actual epidemiologists, what chance did UK population stand?
— Ranjan Balakumaran (@financialeyes) May 20, 2020
The Cherry Pickers
Yesterday Prince Charles said he needed the help of an army of fruitpickers.
The same Charles who helped Jimmy Saville and Church of England paedophile priest Peter Ball.
"We need an army of people to help."
Prince Charles has called on the British public to assist farmers with harvesting fruit and vegetables that might otherwise go to waste due to a lack of workers during the pandemic. https://t.co/nGeaqvV0wPpic.twitter.com/rUrSmjhcAw
Since Brexit the usual pickers (sometimes referred to as migrants) don’t appear to be around.
Would the produce be shared by the volunteer army or sold in shops so the Prince could turn a profit?
Will any of it go to food banks?
Power behaves today as it normally does. But right now it is more noticeable as the powerful are becoming increasingly desperate.
The subsidies that keep the royal food business going are not enough.
Agricultural labourers are not being paid enough money to survive so now he is asking for volunteers. Unbelievable.
The Tory Immigration Bill going through parliament plans to force ‘migrants’ to pay over £600 to use the National Health Service (NHS).
These are workers on low wages doing essential work such picking fruit and working for the National Health Service.
And yesterday the Guardian ran a story about an ex-soldier from Fiji who served in the British Army all over the world and is now being charged thousands of pounds for his NHS medical treatment.
This is obviously not a one-off. The problem is clearly systemic.
He is only in the news because Amelia Gentleman, of the Guardian, knows this is the right time to tell his story.
She reported the Windrush Scandal / Hostile Environment story.
Funnily enough Amelia Gentleman’s husband Jo Johnson was in the cabinet at the time and was wheeled out onto Channel Four News to defend then home secretary Amber Rudd
Since then he has resigned and Amelia continues to do stories about his brother’s government.
The same mentality that gave us the slave trade is in rude health and Dominating today’s government.
— Ranjan Balakumaran (@financialeyes) May 14, 2020
French Pharma giant SANOFI will give the first doses of its new coronavirus vaccine to patients in the US according to its CEO.
This is because the US helped fund the vaccine’s development.
But Sanofi is a French firm and many of the scientists who work there were educated at French universities with money that was paid in by French taxpayers.
French politicians have lined up to say the vaccine should be distributed fairly around the world.
Will Bill Gates step in and resolve the situation?
President Trump has created a task force called Operation Warp Speed to stimulate the pharma industry, the government and the military in the hunt for a vaccine.
In the comment section of the business press there is a view that France did not invest in the vaccine so it should not complain about fair access.
Others are saying that of all the stimulus money that has been handed out in the last few weeks, surely some can be used to pay for the vaccine.
The fact that the US has taken the risk is justification for many that US gets priority access.
But as the US has the Federal Reserve, deep and liquid stock markets, and a huge Government budget, does this mean that America will always have priority access to new drugs?
And look at the US death rates for corona virus.
They are capitalising on the vaccine but death rates are enormous.
The regulatory framework in the US is more favourable for vaccine manufacturers as, since 1986, they cannot be prosecuted for harm.
Once favourable data has been collected, Sanofi could then market the vaccine in Europe and the rest of the world.
The firm in question SANOFI are not exactly angels either.
Their epilepsy drug sodium valproate was prescribed to women of child bearing age for many years and has caused enormous abnormalities in many of these women’s children.
Though SANOFI are being investigated by French prosecutors and Abbott, the US firm that manufactured the same drug, have been sued in the US — in the UK mothers and families affected by SANOFI’s valproate still await justice.
Many have been denied legal aid because the Legal Aid Agency decided they didn’t stand a high enough chance of winning their case.
A review is being conducted into drugs and medical devices by Baroness Cumberlege.
These include sodium valproate, primodos and vaginal / surgical mesh devices.
Cumberlege is a former Tory Health Minister and was appointed to head the review by then Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
This is the evidence that was given by Emma Friedmann of FACSaware.
WARNING: this evidence is well presented but very disturbing.
Big pharma have enormous influence in Parliament and in Washington DC.
Let us see if they can do the right thing – when encouraged.
This is an ok piece by Daniel Boffey. But it’s a crap headline. Makes you want to turn the page.
The piece is in response to Ursula Von Der Leyen’s speech in Brussels yesterday.
Much of the info should have been all over the papers throughout the last few weeks already.
Especially the last four paragraphs about the dispute over the coronavirus fund.
All the rhetoric coming out of the EU and business press has been for solidarity within the EU.
But allowing Germany to hand a trillion Euros to its firms while watching the other austerity hit economies only hand scraps to theirs means the EU is effectively picking winners.
That’s not solidarity – it’s exactly what the state aid rules are there to prevent.
And when Germany is asked about showing more support to its neighbours it says it is prepared to lend them money but not give out any grants.
So Germany is happy to make a profit lending to its neighbours – the ones it sells to and competes with – but not to actually help them.
It’s like an abusive partner that you can never escape.
Controlling, coercive, but always smiling and telling you that the problem is you.
Easements are the government’s way of getting councils to decide who does not get social care. This could be a disabled child or a senior citizen. The duty of care has been replaced by a power of care – an obligation replaced by a choice.
Heather Stewart of the Guardian has great content in her piece but the headline is tame.
Great picture on front page of the Guardian – very as a matter of fact tone – but the horror is there for all to see.
Also on the front page. The Govt line is to create a false dilemma between public health and recession. Thus getting Guardian readers in touch with their inner Tory.
And finally the main headline – that the Government could have done more to protect care homes. Whilst this is true, justice will never arrive for those who have unnecessarily died.
The fascists in charge of the European Central Bank (ECB) are accusing their critics of being fascists.
The same tactics were used during the Brexit debate, when all Brexiteers were labelled racist.
In the UK more recently all Corbyn supporters were also labelled racists.
So there is a pattern emerging.
But now the target is anyone who criticises the European Central Bank.
The ECB have printed trillions of euros to bailout banks and large companies while allowing austerity to continue to destroy most of Europe.
This goes against its own mandate and The Bank has had to make regular changes to the rules it follows to make sure that whatever it does is legal.
But it never really consults anyone about this. The people of Europe, whom this is all done in the name of, are never asked to approve any of these measures.
So the ECB is an undemocratic institution which will call its critics fascists before asking EU citizens if they approve of its policies.
To pretend the ECB is perfect and beyond reproach is dangerous.
Yet that is what the business press is doing.
Do they think nobody will notice?
That this lack of scrutiny will not create further division and resentment?
So the question we are being asked is effectively, do you want to be ruled by traditional Nazis (ECB) or Neo-Nazis (AfD)?
And the ECB answer is, that their own traditional fascism is the only game in town because – it just is.
The idea that all prisoners are treated equally is laughable when we know that they are not.
That no information will be revealed about the mistreatment of Julian Assange because the people mistreating him want to protect his data and consequently his human rights.
These people are sick. Truly evil.
Guardian
The language in the excerpt at the top is sanitised.
The Guardian is basically providing a platform for Ministry of Justice propaganda, but not providing any analysis or critique.
The truth is being told, but there is also massive distortion.
Why?
Because the real story is not being told.
The government have all the access to the information and they are getting it out on their own terms.
They know the Guardian are dependent on them for future stories and that they can therefore be trusted not to rock the boat.
The corruption in this country is off the charts and platforms such as the Guardian saying so little / nothing about this makes them generally complicit.
I know of some good people who work there and put out brilliant work.
Felicity Lawrence and Diane Taylor in particular.
Paul Lewis has also been doing some great work on the coronavirus contracts for surveillance and the SAGE committee.
But we don’t really have a critical press in this country. They have been bought off by private interests and are more interested in using blackmail and kompromat to pursue private agendas than in holding power to account.
The View has arranged an online art auction and virtual exhibition to raise funds for the second edition of the View Magazine, a magazine for women trapped in the criminal justice system.
This short video was produced yesterday to help promote the auction.
Sarah MapleJohan AnderssenCarolina MazzolariJohan AnderssenFrances Aviva BlaneJake TilsonAnish KapoorJulie BrookBob and Roberta Smith
Hopefully it will serve as a publicity vehicle and more people will subscribe to the magazine.
Here is some more publicity about the magazine.
COVID19 has hit independent magazine The View Magazine’s sponsorship revenue. 13 leading UK artists have stepped up and donate original artwork
● IncarcerationNation a virtual exhibition and online auction, will go online on 8 May 2020 to support the summer issue and continue this important platform for women in the criminal justice system to continue running
● The View Magazine is written by women for women in the criminal justice system, dedicated to our solicitors, advocates, families, friends and supporters
●80% of women in prison have a mental health issue, 50% are victims of abuse
Women need advocates for rehabilitation and reintegration if the cycle of offence and incarceration is to end, art is a proven route to rehabilitation
The View is the only magazine of its kind in the UK containing content written by women prisoners and those on license in the community (with contributions from their families, lawyers and supporters). Created by women in the prison system, the artwork shows the value of creativity for wellbeing and rehabilitation, as well as how it is a profound vehicle for communication and connection.
The second issue focuses on the COVID 19 crisis in women’s prisons and solutions for women to stay safe and healthy with recipes by celebrity chef Ruby Tandoh, using ingredients available to buy from prison canteens. We have also published a letter women can use, with legal advice and links to solicitors who will act for them pro bono, to seek compassionate release on the grounds of vulnerability during the pandemic, for underlying mental health and physical health issues. Appeals Barrister Matthew Stanbury guides women through how to write a grounds of appeal against sentence, in terms that are accessible.
The art speaks to truth, honesty, and power, at the same time as being vulnerable. It’s not just cathartic or therapeutic – the art shows real talent.
As well as providing necessary diversion and emotional escape, art permits the women to express themselves and re-establish their own identity. The art features strong women, identity, psychology and the roles played in society.
Following a successful launch in March of The View Magazine, our partnership and sponsorship team forged good contacts in the legal fraternity for our second issue, in June. Supporters and contributors of The View were interviewed on BBC Radio London and the first issue has had coverage in The Times, Big Issue, Huffington Post and Uncommon Ground Media. Our campaigns to raise awareness of the issues women are facing under COVID 19 and 24 hour lockdowns in prisons were covered on BBC News, Channel 5 News and the Today Program.
The magazine is distributed at no charge to serving women prisoners. We couldn’t have foreseen the COVD-19 crisis and its impact on fundraising. We set up a community interest company last month and none of our staff take a salary. All the contributions go to printing the magazine and disbursing funds to women prisoners for their contributions. COVID-19 struck and the world was tipped off its axis. Promises of support were withdrawn, emails were left unanswered and the business community collectively stopped answering its phone. The View rapidly looked as if it might fade forever from view.
Following the kind donation of a piece of art from celebrated artist Bob and Roberta Smith, our determined partnerships director Simon Burgess reached out to other artists to extend their generosity, and now we have amassed museum quality art from among the UK’s top artistic talent.
More on the magazine:
“The View is an essential and beautifully produced toolkit for women prisoners to survive prison and come out unbroken. I am proud to support this venture and I believe it will equip women and the larger public to become more informed about the state of the women’s estate and the issues such as being hundreds of miles from their children and families that women prisoners endure,” Baroness Uddin, the magazine’s Patron.
“Women in prison are uniquely powerless because they are detained in places that are largely designed and controlled by men. The View is a great idea, it advocates for women in prison and will be a force for positive change to bring prisoners and those who run them together through creativity.” – Ian Acheson, former prison governor and Government Terrorism Expert
“We loved the mag at Downview [women’s prison in Surrey], it was such a breath of fresh air. It tells it like it is and the extra money will be handy when I am released. At last someone is hearing what is happening to us, because The View is the truth. We feel like we have someone to turn to and someone who knows the answers and who doesn’tjudge us like some of the charities that come in here, telling us how it is. You lot know, you lot have been here, in our shoes.” Maggie, prisoner, HMP Downview
Human rights violations are becoming the norm in this country. It is often the authorities who help to deliver them.
The Guardian does not go out of its way to present itself as a racist paper.
But it has to make decisions about who it employs and the coverage it provides.
There may be some degrees of unconscious bias going on.
But how unconscious really is it?
Alan Rusbridger edited the Guardian for many years and has been heard saying that his graduate hiring policy was primarily Oxbridge.
I’m all for reading the brightest and the best.
But does that mean that nobody outside Oxbridge should get a look in?
It’s Ramadan at the moment.
I know this because though I’m not Muslim and unlikely to devote my life to reading the Abrahamic scriptures, I found myself twice last week wolfing down the naughty but nice seasonal sweets sold at the Kurdish grocer round the corner from me.
A lockdown luxury.
I look forward to Ramadan for this – though I am naughty as I do not fast!
Either way, I have Muslim friends. Injustice meted out against anyone is bad.
I am grateful to the otherwise corrupt Guardian for covering some of these issues, though it is far lighter than I would prefer.
Sadly there is so much other under reported injustice that, in this environment, any coverage at all is a blessing.
Abuse of Trust
The way the conservative government collaborates with press barons and abuses the apparatus of government is a huge problem.
Today Priti Patel will be exonerated of all bullying despite plenty of damning evidence appearing in the press.
This is because the inquiry was led by the Cabinet Secretary – Mark Sedwill.
Yes, politics is a dirty game, but Sedwill in particular appears to be more Machiavellian than most.
Like Michael Gove, he will produce contradictory arguments depending on the occasion and the outcome he prefers.
As Groucho Marx famously said, “If you don’t like my principles, I have others”
And then we have Trevor Phillips. Like Priti Patel he is using his ethnicity to hate on ethnics. And he loves it. But what choice did he have? He cut his teeth as racial equality campaigner and now that that sort of thing is no longer in fashion he has no choice but to go the other way.
Ex-Prospect Editor David Goodhart is also at Policy Exchange and has also made the journey from posh lefty to radical racist. Goodhart is descended from one of the Jewish founders of Lehman Brothers. The racism they would have had to contend with is not something Goodhart appears to take into consideration when dishing it out himself. I remember seeing him on Channel Four News during a debate on the Windrush Scandal. He said the entire episode was not the Government’s fault. Very similar approach to the one taken by Mark Sedwill when exonerating Priti Patel, who is currently running this country’s deportation policy and is under no scrutiny whatsoever.
This is still chaired by Blairite Yvette Cooper. One of the three other Labour MPs on the committee is very new, the ‘BME’Janet Daby, and the other two, Shadow Africa Minister Stephen Doughty & Shadow Immigration Minister Holly Lynch supported Owen Smith over Jeremy Corbyn in the 2016 coup.
I can’t say too much about Stuart McDonald of the SNP who is also on the committee.
In short, it’s all a bit of a racial and political whitewash.
So there really is no scrutiny of Priti Patel or the most right wing government in living memory when it comes to bullying, racism, immigration, police violence.
I hate to be the bringer of bad news, but I feel it is important to concretely quantify how deep the shit is that we are in.
Feeling it is one thing, talking about it meaningfully quite another.
Mark Di Stefano, the FT’s media reporter, is accused of eavesdropping on rival newspapers' meetings at which staff were informed of planned salary cuts and furloughs https://t.co/owwTM4XnZ3
Over at the European Central Bank things are very much focused on the pandemic. ECB President Christine Lagarde features in yesterday’s video.
But the real story is about Germany not wanting to help its neighbours.
France asked Germany to put money into a coronavirus fund and Germany said it would be happy to give loans to other countries, but not grants.
As a result President Lagarde said she would be happy to increase the ECB’s balance sheet by printing another €750 billion – €1trillion euros to buy a broad range of bonds from AAA Government bonds all the way through to non investment grade junk bonds.
This is highly controversial. It is interesting to see the language being used to describe these moves.
The PR people at the ECB only seem to have let this story out via the FT.
The term they repeatedly use to describe bonds that have been downgraded to junk status is “Fallen Angels”.
The ECB have already been buying bonds for a few years. They launched a QE programme in late 2014 to prop up the Euro and financial markets.
Some views from this morning.
Although we’re told this is a pandemic crisis, the IMF saw it all coming in October:
‘Tis well known they like their football in Newcastle.
Tino Army — Faustian Pact
In January 1996 the club bought flamboyant Colombian striker Faustino Asprilla from Parma.
Known as Tino, Asprilla was a showman and one of the most popular players Newcastle ever had.
However, despite building up a big lead over Manchester United that year, Newcastle only went on to finish second.
The following year Asprilla scored a hat trick against Luis Figo’s Barcelona in the Champion’s League – the last goals he scored for the club.
Asprilla, along with Cantona, Kanchelskis, Zola, Ravanelli, Vialli, Gullit, Ginola, & Desailly, was among the first wave of mid nineties big money overseas transfers in the Premier League.
Agents made big money, as did managers. Former Arsenal boss George Graham was reprimanded for taking ‘bungs’. But he wasn’t the only one.
Corruption existed but didn’t get much coverage.
Match Fixing
Some players got accused of match fixing. Including former Liverpool goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar, Wimbledon goalkeeper Hans Segers and Aston Villa (former Wimbledon) striker John Fashanu.
They cleared their names but Grobbelaar and Segers got done for betting irregularities all the same.
The men had been accused of colluding with a Malay betting syndicate.
In 1992 Lou Macari, former Swindon manager, was accused of betting his side would lose to Newcastle in an FA cup game they lost 5-0. He claimed someone else placed the bet as an insurance against the club exiting the tournament early. And the players were suffering because house prices were so expensive.
In the mid nineties betting rules changed and spread bets were allowed on the timing of throw-ins and the number of corners and yellow cards in a game. These could all be gamed by players. Simple match fixing was no longer the only threat to the integrity of the game.
Arsenal manager, Frenchman, Arsene Wenger knew about match-fixing from his time in France. Olympique de Marseilles, with Chris Waddle, and their owner Bernard Tapie were convicted of it in the early nineties.
Wenger called for the practice of betting on the number of throw-ins and the timing of the first throw-in to be banned.
Sometimes players were seen booting the ball off the pitch right at the start of the game in an obvious attempt to manipulate the timing of the first throw in.
This interfered with the free flow and trust in the game.
Money. By paying the players higher and higher wages, they were less and less incentivised to get involved in match fixing. They still gambled but there have been few match-fixing scandals (to date).
When Marseilles were done for match-fixing they were at their height. They apparently paid opponents to go easy on them in the run up to bigger games.
Johnny Foreigner
The EU Bosman ruling on free transfers and the lifting of the cap on foreign players meant England became the perfect place for talented footballers to retire on fat cash.
Just as the prevalence of ecstasy and rave culture was credited with helping end football violence in the 90s, so too did the influx of foreign players play a role in the fight against racism.
Till then most local clubs were owned by local businessmen, but as club football became televised globally, so too did foreign ownership become normal.
Rise of the Owner Manager
In 1995 Blackburn won the Premier League under Manager Kenny Dalglish. The club was owned by local steel magnate Jack Walker. He famously preferred no black players.
Three years previously (1992) Leeds United had won the title with Eric Cantona as striker.
Their then manager Howard Wilkinson is the last English Manager to have won the English Premier League. (nearly thirty years ago)
So why can’t English Managers win their own League and why can the England football team no longer win tournaments?
Why do England lose?
It is often said (in England) that the English invented football. Maybe this is true.
They certainly helped create many footballing institutions – and the rules.
It is also often said that the English invented the English Language.
From a copyright perspective english is more like an open source set of memes than an actual language in its own right
But, like football, it now belongs to everyone – if you can afford it.
Football, cricket and boxing were all broadcast on terrestrial TV till the early 90s.
At which point they started shifting over to Rupert Murdoch’s paid Sky Sports station.
Ticket prices shot up and many fans were simply priced out.
So yes, England may have invented football, but capitalism and government lobbying stopped many English people from being able to access it in their own homes.
The gap between elite speakers of english and the so-called hoi polloi still exists – though distinctions are far from simple due to the dynamism of English capitalism and, though unfashionable to say, class boundaries.
Of which Pygmalion / My Fair Lady’s Phonetics Professor Henry Higgins was most aware.
An Englishman’s way of speaking absolutely classifies him, The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him.
Hear them down in Soho Square speaking English any way they dare
Just as Professor Higgins wondered “Why can’t the English teach their children how to speak? ” FT’s anthropological sport columnist Simon Kuper wrote, Why England lose? also known abroad as Soccernomics.
Now you’re talking
Language is a vehicle for a culture.
In the case of English, it’s like the dollar. The reserve currency. Accepted everywhere.
Sure, the Yuan / Renmibi is the future, and the changeover should have already happened, but it hasn’t.
English is the bastard child of many different vehicles. And it is currently the language of business.
Saudi Arcadia
So when Saudi Arabia buy a British Football Club that is a big deal.
They could have done this years ago but stayed out of UK football.
Leaving the football to the Qataris and Emiratis.
When Brazil’s Neymar moved to Qatar-owned Paris St Germain from Barcelona for €200m in 2017 it was clearly more than just a football transfer.
It was a geo-strategic chess move.
Saudi bought the Salvatori Mundi Leonardo painting around the same time.
Highlighting the difference in their investment strategies.
At the time there was a global PR campaign against Qatar. Saudi had accused them of hosting terrorists. Though this may have been true, the Qatari Royal Family and military were anti-ISIS, whereas Saudi themselves are rumoured to have been funding ISIS.
Butchers without Borders – Boris & MBS in 2016
Buying art and not football teams is in keeping with the old Saudi Arabian way.
But at last year’s Davos in the Desert the managing director of Manchester United spoke about the club’s approach to international marketing and e-sports.
President Trump’s son in law Jared Kushner spoke there too, as did Prime Minister Modi of India and Ali Parsa of Babylon Health.
Saudi PIF have stakes in Babylon Health’s app business which takes NHS money away from GPs (primary care doctors) and pays it out as profit to private shareholders like the Saudi Government.
The logic of a post-Brexit dirty money City of London oligarch playground dictates that you must be present in all markets where there is money to be made.
So instead of a local or even a British businessman owning and running Newcastle United it is now normal that the revenue and profits will start going to Saudi Arabia.
Just as it is quite normal that Saudi are making money undermining the NHS through Babylon.
Butchers without Borders
There is still no covid testing of passengers arriving at UK airports from around the world. Home Secretary Priti Patel, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, Health Secretary Matt Hancock and London Mayor Sadiq Khan appear to have been silent on this.
Jeremy Hunt the former Health Secretary is now the Chair of the Health Select Committee. He is supposed to be scrutinising his successor on the nation’s health. There is supposed to be a ‘grilling’ tomorrow.
On Thursday 16 April we will be questioning the Secretary of State @MattHancock about the management of the Coronavirus outbreak. pic.twitter.com/vqTipf0poW
— Health and Social Care Committee (@CommonsHealth) April 14, 2020
Given that Hunt himself did so much to turn the health sector from a public service into a profit centre, we can safely presume Hancock is not going to face tough questioning.
For the simple truth about the UK Public Health System NHS story, watch The Great NHS Heist:
Press Freedom
As Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt made a big deal about press freedom around the world, but said nothing about the plight of political prisoner Julian Assange at home.
Assange is currently locked up 23 1/2 hours a day in Belmarsh and has a lung condition. Covid has affected the prison and yet he is not being removed for his own safety. I wonder how many other at risk prisoners have already died of Covid?
It turns out Hunt’s bid for Prime Minister was backed by a close ally of Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Salman – the one who ordered the murder, in Istanbul, of Washington Post Journalist Jamal Kashoggi.
To conclude, there are lots of ways in which judgements can be made about you.
This is not new.
But there are more and more ways in which data can be collected and for it to be twisted against you when you least want it to.
So psychologically prepare for yourself to be attacked.
You need as much access to your own data as the people (or machines) who are going to be deciding your future.
Even having the data may not on its own be enough to get your voice heard when you need it to, as we have very much moved into the age of the jobsworth.
For all the privatisation that has been going on, this is a golden age for officaldom.
The pay may or may not be great but the job is secure and the opportunity for psychopathy is immense.
As we rub up daily against the business methods and logic of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, the Russian, Saudi, Brussels, Chinese and American Governments it is worth remembering that nothing lasts forever.
Surveillance is there to prosecute people. And innocent people will be prosecuted as corporations reinforce the power of the state and vice versa.
As the solider in the Dr Strangelove scene says below –
You’re going to have to answer to the Coca Cola Company
When should lockdown measures be eased? As governments weigh the expert advice from scientists, economists etc, we'd like to know what you think. What is a good #coronavirus exit strategy? Get in touch #BBCTheBriefing and I'll see you at 05:00 BSThttps://t.co/yCDRwt4Ile
The BBC News Presenter’s Tweet above consists of a short question and a statement, followed by another short question.
This is effective communication. Her job is to stimulate discussion. To guide viewers into the issue and also to help set the agenda.
This is the science of public opinion. It overlaps with agenda setting, propaganda and disinformation.
Competing claims don’t always get the same attention.
So who, or what, drives the agenda?
Is it a fixed or ever changing group of people?
Does Agenda Setting strategy depend on the situation?
The following quote is from the wikipedia entry on Agenda Setting
Although this topic would be interesting on any occasion, the current corona virus helps shine light on the workings of agenda setting.
It is much clearer to see the government’s messaging strategy as it is currently so prominent.
This means it is possible to speculate on the government’s objectives and definitively observe its methods.
Below is the oft repeated UK government slogan. It is Orwellian in its gaslighting.
If you have Covid19 you are encouraged to stay at home.
If you don’t have it, you are encouraged to stay at home.
So if you need help, you are encouraged to die quietly at home.
So the Covid19 story in the UK is one of propaganda and accounting.
Few people are being tested so nobody knows who has it and who doesn’t.
This means the disease can spread easily without anyone knowing where the hotspots are.
The technology for tracing is being rolled out late and is instead being used for general surveillance purposes.
The following Guardian article uses the word de-anonymisation to describe ministers taking data about the whole population and using it to target individuals, as you would expect in a full on police state:
NHS coronavirus app: memo discussed giving ministers power to 'de-anonymise' users https://t.co/VddxpDIVHU
This is just one example of the agenda. In France and at EU level the tracing conversation has already started. People know it means surveillance but they are forced to accept it along with all the other government imposed lockdown measures.
The population has trouble fighting draconian government measures at the best of times. But during an unprecedented global reaction to a post-war pandemic it is particularly hard to organise when you’re not even allowed to meet.
The yellow vests in France gathered to oppose Macron every weekend for over a year but have stopped thanks to Macron’s lockdown.
And in the UK all we have been treated to by the corporate backed media has been coverage of Boris Johnson supposedly contracting a severe case of corona virus which necessitated that he self isolate and eventually go to intensive care.
The same agenda setting techniques that were at play during the Brexit campaign are being redeployed during the corona virus.
The aim is not to defeat the virus.
It is to make sure the Conservative government cling to power and deflect all scrutiny away from them and onto anyone else such as the public, health care professionals, public commentators, regulators, suppliers, large corporations and even the opposition.
The following quote by Peter Pomerantsev is taken from the wikipedia entry on Vladmir Surkov, Vladimir Putin’s long standing head of communications.
It is hard not to see similarities with the way modern Britain is run. More effort is made here to convince the public that the government does not interfere with independent regulators, that there are checks and balances in place to protect the public.
But when something is important, then it’s political, and you simply can’t argue with the decision because no-one will hear you out or give you a platform.
Britain is a brilliant place to be rich and powerful. Otherwise you must do what you can to survive.
The Daily Mail has been one of the only periodicals to cover the permanent scandal taking place at the Court of Protection.
Here’s the story:
Here’s the Editorial:
I have long said that when the Mail is bad it is evil but that when it is good it is brilliant.
Christopher Booker, who passed away last year, used his Sunday Telegraph column to, amongst other things, report on the war against families and specifically senior citizens being conducted by the Family Courts and Court of Protection.
Now that we are entering a period of draconian legal power grabs, there is no reason why the Family Courts and Courts of Protection wouldn’t find a way of granting themselves and their select clients yet more anonymised and unaccountable power.
I don’t think there’s anything worth celebrating here, though I must say, I’ve never like Dorries. It is remarkable that she is a Health Minister as she is more famous for being very right wing and a writer of chick lit.
Here’s a bit more on statutory instruments. Looks like they can bring in quite sweeping rule changes with these.
What is going on around here then? Jesus is getting some pointers from his mum in the Temple perhaps.
I wonder what he would have done during a time of Coronavirus.
As a religious man, would he have had the time to associate with the non religious?
UK Infectious Diseases Report 2006
Of course today the only valid religions being financialisation and, er, that’s it.
The consumer society with its sexualisation of food and travel has a lot to answer for. If it weren’t for our permanent need to travel around the world we wouldn’t have diseases like Coronavirus spreading so quickly.
But where is this disease really from?
If Russia did start it (not saying they did) then they have played a blinder. But where do we go next? They have had an Oil War with Saudi, managed to influence elections and social media generally and yet they behave as though have no real aggression planned.
Henry Kissinger told me when portraying a miser always remember to stress his generosity. And so we come full circle. The age of austerity, for which I am the poster child, is upon us. But never so much as what is to come. The billionaire class must be allowed to live in a world of abundance. But the rest of us must learn to multiply at an ever decreasing rate. For automation requires of us no more than to fuel the automation. A bit of nepotism is also known to grease the wheels. Automated nepotism is the way we are going. There was too much new school meritocracy in the past. But once you are admitted you must learn to think differently. To keep your kith and kin down. If you can’t get used to that, you don’t deserve to survive. It’s not a loyalty competition. It’s just random mutation.
Sexual Harassment, Psychological Abuse, Self-Harm, Mental Health, & Privatisation Contracts
Farah Damji edits a magazine for female prisoners called The View.
She granted me an interview yesterday.
We spoke about the state of the prison system, specifically for women.
The conversation lasted an hour and twenty minutes.
The issues she raises are not getting out into the public eye.
If the public were to discuss these matters, billions of pounds worth of outsourcing contracts with the Ministry of Justice would be jeopardized.
Because the public would realise that billions of pounds spent on providing services for prisoners from education, rehabilitation to mental health is being tragically wasted.
We are talking about large scale corruption and incompetence.
But most people are simply not interested in ‘Prison Reform’.
There is enormous waste in the Ministry of Justice, where contracts are tendered to private and third sector organisations with little or no scrutiny and are causing actual harm.
This should be a scandal on the scale of the infected blood and the sexual abuse inquiries.
This is a recent article Farah has written on Medium.
The mainstream media’s coverage of Farah in the press is simply hysterical. She is demonized and made to look mad, bad and dangerous. But she has never committed a violent offence.
There are false reports of a Personality Disorder diagnosis — she suffers from C-PTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), a condition which is exacerbated in prison. At Farah’s trial in Southwark Crown Court last week the Judge, HHJ Gledhill QC, made it clear he found it offensive that Farah knows her rights.
She is a woman who demands that her rights and those of all women in the criminal justice system are observed.
Somehow, this is pathologised and made dangerous by the very agencies meant to ensure that they observe the rights of the most vulnerable women in society.
Farah has written extensively about G4S and privatisation, including in a prison newsletter she started called The View, and is worried that if she is incarcerated again, she will be suicided by the state and become another death in custody statistic.
At the bottom of Farah’s recent medium post, some the View Magazine’s supporters are named. Amongst them are Baromess Uddin, Courtenay Griffith QC and Peter Woolfe the restorative justice campaigner.
Farah has identified that amongst The View’s supporters are, New Economics Foundation and Big Society Capital which are conduits for the sanitisation of privatisation.
They support hedge funds and private for profit companies board the criminal justice gravy train.
Though Farah has identified the sinister effect of privatisation on the well being of prisoners, it is these very purveyors of performance related social impact bonds that have also helped support her newsletter.
This type of philanthrocapitalism preys on the most vulnerable in society and gamifies and monetises their suffering.
As Lenin once said, The Capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him with.
Or in this case, the prison owners will lease you the laptop on which you describe the torture & drug dependency their shareholders impose upon you.
Which they then turns into a performance-related financial derivatives market.
The seasoned paedo enablers at the Sun could tap into their homophobic and racist side.
But what prejudice can the white paedo nationalists evoke when duelling with heterosexual white male capitalist Phil Hogan?
If they want a spat, he’ll bring it.
Hogan and Murdoch have a lot in common.
Cold heartless Neo-Liberalism.
But Hogan used to be the EC agriculture commissioner.
He will want to protect Irish farmers from US hormone and chemicals crossing the border.
He has also pushed through laws in financial services and won’t want Ireland’s tech and tax avoidance rackets to be played with.
Even Steve Bannon would have little to say about Phil Hogan who is smarter, tougher, more Irish and more capitalist than the billionaire dependent US Rasputin.
But in as much as you can describe it, it can adhere to communicative principles, for instance:
This article appears in the Sun.
Pay Fury is efficient signalling. Pay is a short word and Fury is highly emotionally loaded. It’s words like this which earn tabloids their money. Fury is a brilliant word for a tabloid style article on anything you wish to highlight.
Pay Fury is a category, a genre in itself.
You can trot this out forever and it will always work.
Health Killjoys pocket £100k
Killjoy is loaded – it means meanspirited, no fun.
Pocket when used as a verb is like trouser – it means took home or earned but is more evocative of securing funds without really working for them, ie stealing.
More than 350 nanny state killjoys pocketed x for y.
The language is of sensation and excess. The emotion, morality, direction, size, certainty, outrage are all embedded in just a few words. That is what words can do. And if you know how to get words to do these things, then you can achieve big things. The tabloid press exist for agenda setting.
“For telling us what to do”
What do the top managers at the Sun earn?
They tell their readers what to think about. They don’t mention what they don’t want anyone to know.
They obviously underpay the underlings.
But the overall goal is to undermines public services and promote post-Brexit private healthcare.
All communicators should be monitoring this paper.
For uncut real time agenda setting you need to stick your head in The Sun.
Few call out how similar the line the Daily Mail trots out is to Labour’s.
Alex Brummer, the Mail’s City Editor, is forever warning about foreign takeovers.
So’s Larry Elliott of the Guardian.
Mail Business Editor Ruth Sunderland who, like Brummer, is ex Guardian, can’t stand Corbyn and McDonnell.
Despite holding identical views on the fleecing of the worker, the consumer, and the shareholder.
So is this country’s progressive opposition actually just an occasional alliance between the few business journos that manage to get genuine stories into the press, and a few backbench & opposition MPs who then put them in front of Select Committees?
Does the non-binding scrutiny of select committees lead to consistent meaningful progressive change?
The very few people who own newspapers, tv stations and silicon valley social media platforms can, of course, run their own campaigns.
And of course there may be some autonomy in the News Room.
For the rest of us, the shop is closed.
Progressive change is slow and often torpedoed by lobbyists.
But how else to allow the “growth” of the economy while allowing for a bit of social justice?
This appears to be as far as Press Barons would stretch — they are the ones who matter — guardians of public opinion — controllers of dissent.
And they prefer their ad revenue, tax avoidance, financial portfolios and blackmail rackets to acknowledging their readers’ views thirst for community, opportunity and genuine political change.
So real change, at scale, never happens.
Foreign Takeovers
British Steel and Cobham are traditional UK Industrial and Defence firms. If they are to be key to the UK’s future strategy then they ought to be saved. But if the UK plans to be the farm on tax competition and financialisation at the cost of everything else then these industries as well as many others will be let go of sharpish.
Let’s see if central government cross subsidises loss making industries and regions in return for precious votes. I hope it does.
It’s quid pro quo in the devolved political market place.
But what about the people who have been losing out down south, particularly in cities like London?
And will UK Small & Medium Size Enterprises get any help exporting abroad?
Or will Big Capital rule the day and allow the UK to become a hedge fund only environment with all industries sold off?
But politics is a dirty game and you didn’t create the conflict — just amplified what was already there.
It would be unfair to pretend you aren’t a shrewd operator.
That your recent partnership with Tory PR Queen Carrie Symonds wasn’t a master stroke.
I think it important at this stage that the nation gets behind you, at least for a moment, as leader.
We all want the best for the country.
The fact that you are totally corrupt, and turn a blind eye to everything from child abuse to full scale corporate criminality is an absolute disgrace — but also a fact of life in modern Britain.
I’m not saying we should give up on exposing bad practice — but the media does a brilliant job of covering it up.
Now is the time for reading small print and holding power to account.
Never Mind the Backstop
This is my first musical adventure on this website.
Big thanks are due to John Ford Blagger for coaxing me out of Accapella and to Ｉ．Ｋ．Ｂｏｎｚｕｍｐｆｅｒｌ for all the fabulous production pointers.
This one’s called “Nevermind the Backstop” by Obstakula Vernakula.
England’s Dreamin’
Versailles — The Remix
I don’t believe Frau Von Der Leyen has yet been subjected to much critique on these pages.
She was crowned President of the European Commission a little later than planned.
This was due to some of her proposed Commissioners being turned down.
The original French nominee, Sylvie Goulard, was rejected due to ongoing fraud / corruption charges at EU level.
Of course this didn’t stop Christine Lagarde becoming head of the IMF and subsequently becoming the Chair of the European Central Bank.
For those of you who do not self-identify as Bank-Watchers here is a picture of Ms Lagarde on one of her first days in office, check out the ratio:
I was pleased to invite my new Governing Council colleagues to join me at an off-site retreat yesterday. We discussed in an open and informal setting the running of the Governing Council. pic.twitter.com/ifMxiNh7uh
Twas pointed out that there are more painted women on the walls than real women around the table.
The reason why it is only white men in the ECB offices in this photo is that they are the sitting Chairmen of the various national European Central Banks.
They just happen to all be middle aged white guys.
Which makes perfect sense to me – but doesn’t stop the photo being a PR disaster.
The ECB and the rest of the EU institutions seem indifferent to even the notion of the real time PR disaster.
And why should they care?
They are all civil servants on pukka pensions and it is their organisation that has all the authority.
The media can dance to their tune.
But it is civil society’s ire they should do be doing more to assuage.
Which they never do.
Apparently there was a €1 trillion Green EU stimulus launched this week.
Which I’m guessing will have some impact on some bond market somewhere.
Either creating a new market and more places for pension funds to invest or cannibalising another market that would have been trying to achieve the same goal organically before the influx of EU capital.
Green finance isn’t new.
Former UK Chancellor Philip Hammond championed London as a global centre of Green Finance even as he was voting to expand Heathrow Airport.
He did this with no sense of awkwardness and no platform of note so much as batted an eyelid.
The other Phil, Phil Hogan is the new Irish Commissioner for trade.
He will be replacing Michel Barnier and has a tough reputation.
Hogan used to be Commissioner for agriculture.
How is this going to work?
Border in the Irish Sea and corporation tax competition.
Surely this will herald a race to the bottom.
Thierry Breton is the French Commissioner for the Single Market.
This means that among other things he is in charge of Defence.
Till last month Breton was head of ATOS, the firm that sent long term sick people to work, in the UK, and cut their benefits.
Breton has already therefore had a hand in killing hundreds of innocent disabled Brits.
This list of deaths can be added to the bodycount from his time at France Telecom / Orange, the company with one of the highest suicide rates in the world.
So Breton has killed the public and killed his staff.
Which makes him EU Corporate Criminal Aristocracy.
Apparently the EU Single Army and ECB QE will keep Britain entangled in EU affairs for a long time to come.
The EU stitch up is worth returning to at some stage. . .
Patronic Relationship
There is a puff piece in the FT about MBS, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. It touches on the killing of Jamal Kashoggi but praises MBS for “ripping up the rule book” and liberalising the country.
The re-opening of the old town Diriyah, Anthony Joshua’s recent fight there, the opening of cinemas and allowing women to drive are all seen as sign that MBS is liberalising.
But feminism itself is not welcome in Saudi Arabia. MBS has arrested many women’s rights activists despite recently bringing an end to the country’s ban on gender segregation in restaurants.
But the real news in Saudi from a business perspective has been the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of the Saudi State oil firm ARAMCO on the Saudi Stock Exchange.
Interesting to compare the EU Climate Stimulus and the Aramco Float.
They supposedly stand for the exact opposite. One to transition us away from the other.
The EU refer to being Climate Neutral. Does this mean Saudi Oil will not be penetrating fortress Europe? Likewise for Russian Gas?
Or does it instead mean that the same EU / US banks and energy trading firms are right behind both strategies which, rather than reducing emissions and consequently pollution, will instead have a net effect that approximates to somewhere around zero.
Dodgy Derivatives
Richard Sandor must be licking his lips at the chance to develop new climate futures markets. The contradiction at the heart of these ponzi schemes appears to simply go without saying. There used to be organisations called Carbon Trade Watch and CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) Watch that tracked the fraud that is Carbon Finance.
Energy-Based Currency
My friend Roger Lewis in Sweden is very good on this stuff.
He blogs prolifically.
Though I often can’t keep up with his writing, his source material is brilliant.
In conversation he always explains what he really means, which for newbies like me is useful.
Roger and I speak on Skype quite frequently and strands of his thinking often appear on this website.
We sometimes upload the chats to Bitchute or YouTube.
Roger has read a lot more than me on many different topics and will helpfully quote relevant poets and philosophers to help get me over the line.
If you like any of what I write about, do check out his work.
A friend has patiently trained me up (online) to do this using IMAGEMAGICK on the command line.
My father was a mainframe programmer (for ARAMCO) so it is nice for me to suddenly be writing out code for something i find meaningful.
That’s the thing about learning. If it isn’t useful, why would you remember?
The Toxic Sludge is Good for You line is taken from a 1994 book by John Stauber (and others). It is a study of the PR industry. I thoroughly recommend it.
John Stauber is still around and tweeted this a few hours ago.
It took me a bit longer than I would have liked to do the speech bubbling yesterday, but I enjoyed it and feel my new image policy has already given my output, and specifically my writing, a new lease of life.
British politics is simply dominated by Paedophiles. Twas ever thus.
Today’s General Election proves that.
Winners by a clear margin were Jeffrey Epstein, Peter Mandelson, Harvey Proctor, Enoch Powell, & arch-enabler Theresa Villiers.
Villiers as pointed out here three weeks ago in Gagged in Golders was the Northern Ireland Secretary in 2015 who shut down the Child Sex Abuse Inquiry into high level Military & state backed paedophila at Northern Irish Kincora childrens home involving paedophile Lord Mountbatten, who himself introduced prolific establishment paedophile Jimmy Savile to that esteemed friend of paedophiles — Prince Charles.
Scotland and Northern Ireland have been completely excluded from the current Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in which Prince Charles’ name has been mentioned and whose own letters supporting and vouching for prolific paedophiles appear in evidence.
Kincora documents are off limits till 2085.
It’s no wonder the Tories poured many of their efforts into getting Theresa Villiers re-elected in Barnet. She has all the dirt. Whenever you see her on TV it is crucial to remind yourself of the VIP paedophile kompromat game.
Mrs Thatcher herself helped cover-up Kincora when the information was first published in the newspapers in 1983. But even she would be a stranger to today’s Tory Party.
Sam Tarry won in Ilford for Labour against Mike Gapes. I’ve had some indirect contact with Tarry in the past — not a nice man.
Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch, Guido Fawkes, Tommy Robinson, Steve Bannon, Katy Hopkins all got what they wanted.
The enormous dissent tracking psychological operation that is Twitter certainly delivered for the Tories.
Twitter’s head of strategy and policy Nick Pickles was once a member of the Hard-Right Young Briton’s Foundation, flatmates with Conservative Home Editor & thug Mark Wallace, and a Conservative Candidate in 2010.
What will the EU & ECB do to UK now? Will Britain be included in EU Single Army via the Backdoor and will the ECB QE multi trillion debt somehow get parcelled up and held by the UK?
As Keynes said at the beginning of The Economic Consequences of the Peace from 1919:
Brexit negotiations are a completely different stitch-up to what happened in Versailles in 1919. The Germans then limped off feeling hard done by. Not possible today. The outcome of the Second World War and years of EU integration has left transnational capital perfectly placed to reimpose restrictions on movement, thought, behaviour, & free expression.
Brits and Yanks act like ‘we won the war’ .
But now that the state and its public services are being dismantled to drive profits, patronage and financialisation, things are starting to look a little different to how they once may have seemed.
For me the hope was that Labour won the election, Britain leave the EU and set an example for how to invest in a country and its people. Will the Tory investment plans ever materialise?
Or is the transnational power game still the only game in town?
“Boris” Kemal “Johnson” is a Brussels man. And whatever plan he is handed he will execute. The newspapers yesterday gave clear instructions that their readers should all vote Tory. So this is what happened.
Anyone who points this out signs an oath to a life at the margins.
I’m being introduced to the world of code — and loving it.
ImageMagick can be used to produce / manipulate images & generate text.
Once installed, & with a few images generated, the power of computing feels more transparent thanks to ImageMagick.
There is something satisfying about typing a command into a computer and then almost instantly seeing it done. It is a feeling of power. Knowing it will do what you want it to.
All depends on what you ask.
And it is so different to photoshop, which is nice and very powerful too, but all the work is done for you.
With the code, you don’t use your mouse and it feels more brutal, more agile, more old school.
This website is helpful. I only came it across it for the ImageMagick stuff but the other things that are being discussed look very useful indeed.
Andrew still claims not to have known @VRSVirginia. But she certainly worked at Trump's Mar a Lago because that's where she met Ghislaine Maxwell around the time this photo was taken with Donald Trump in New York. pic.twitter.com/ZDjUqlXkkr
A former Remainer, Mike Freer, used to run Barnet Council, is staunchly pro-Israel, and has turned his back on his liberal views to become one of Boris Johnson’s Whips (hardline enforcer of party discipline).
The North London Pinochet
Full disclosure: This author frequently refers to Mike Freer as the Augusto Pinochet of North London due to the shock therapy neo-liberal economic experiments Freer has subjected the residents of Barnet to, particularly the outsourcing of many of the Council’s Functions to Capita in what became known as the One Barnet / Easy Council policy.
The Anti-Female Female
With Conservative Synagogues behind him, Mike Freer is happy for Berger to be denounced as anti-female due to her signing up to the Lib Dem manifesto which includes pledges about Trans Rights.
The Logic
For truth lovers this strategy is wrongheaded in many ways.
He’s not Anti-Trans
First of all Freer is an openly gay man who is not known for his anti-trans views.
Tories love Paedos
The Tory record on paedophilia in general and Westminster VIP sex abuse in particular is hardly one in which they have covered themselves in glory.
Thatcher & Savile
Margaret Thatcher, who represented the Finchley and Golders Green constituency from 1959 to 1992, was on very good terms with BBC stalwart Jimmy Savile who is now known to have been easily as prolific and organised in his approach to blackmail, influence, & paedophilia as that other friend of the British Establishment – Jeffrey Epstein.
Establishment Paedophilia
That Savile operated with impunity throughout his life is testament to the protection he received.
Savile’s connections to the establishment ran deep – including the Royal Family, The Military, The NHS and Northern Ireland.
Savile was introduced to Prince Charles by Prince Phillip’s favourite Uncle — Lord Louis Mountbatten.
In 1966 Lord Mountbatten, then Commandant General, arranged for Jimmy Savile to be the first civilian to be awarded a Royal Marines’ green beret.
Mountbatten was murdered off the coast of Ireland by the IRA in 1974.
Kincora Children’s Home
He was known to frequent Kincora, a Northern Irish children’s home, where he habitually raped vulnerable teenage boys.
Theresa May ensured Kincora would not be investigated in the ongoing Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse because she was unwilling for the truth about rampant MI6, Military and Royal Family paedophilia to surface on her watch.
Thus the shadow of establishment paedophilia & anti-semitism has fallen upon this campaign.
Mike Freer
Mike Freer like everyone else in this story claims to be a huge Thatcher fan.
In the following 2013 video following her death Freer claims Mrs Thatcher’s views on international diplomacy were an influence.
This was obviously when he was still a Remainer.
Freer appears to also be a huge pragmatist
Rather than sticking to his principles and falling on his sword following Remain’s failure to win the referendum, Freer has shown himself willing to get in bed with anyone, from Boris Johnson to the bigoted racist, homophobic, misogynist DUP.
Misogyny without Borders
In the following image, prolific left wing Broken Barnet Blogger aka Mrs Angry revealed that in June this year Mike Freer invited the racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-abortion, anti-Trans, far-right Arlene Foster to Margaret Thatcher’s former constituency office.
In the photo is Conservative Female Councillor Jennifer Grocock whose Brexit credentials and taste in bedfellows couldn’t be clearer.
So it wasn't a dream: this happened – Finchley Tories invited Arlene Foster to Margaret Thatcher House, and Cllr Grocock dressed up in a union jack dress to greet her: pic.twitter.com/bx4L94Q1M8
Liberal Jews in Finchley and Golders Green are leaving the Tory Party and campaigning for Luciana Berger to become their MP.
But will the Conservative narrative, that Gay Male Flip-Flopper Mike Freer is the one whom Jews can trust really defeat the homecoming of a Finchley Girl and (unwilling) national antisemitism spokesperson?
Ring My Bell
One thing’s for sure in all this — the Conservatives are looking pretty jittery next door:
Conservatives pour 'considerable resources' into Chipping Barnet to defend Theresa Villier's marginal https://t.co/CRYgQR6eu7 via @jewishchron
Facebook, as with British Justice, is open to all — just like the Ritz.
The Big Bang in the City of London Financial Sector happened in the Eighties and permitted US banks to massively expand their operations.
Stuffy old British banking gave way to a more openly money grabbing approach which meant people from varied backgrounds were allowed in to make their fortunes.
The Masons and the City establishment still ran the place but the lower orders were allowed in and, to a certain degree, their loyalty could be relied on.
This is what Thatcher, Blair, and Cameron represented.
As Rees-Mogg is in cahoots with Steve Bannon and Nigel Farage, his own sister joined the Brexit Party and became an MEP, it should not come as such a surprise that yesterday Nigel Farage withdrew every Brexit Party candidate from any seat in which the current MP is a Tory.
This strategy would be nothing if Boris Johnson hadn’t already performed a purge of the party and guaranteed 100% loyalty to the Hard Brexit cause.
Personally I believe the EU and the ECB are awful corporatist militarist vehicles that UK should have nothing to do with.
So now Trump, Bannon, Farage, Rees-Mogg, Cummings, & Johnson are a more immediate threat.
They have to be dealt with but not by staying in the corporatist EU.
Ad Libraries
If you look at Facebook’s arguments for profiteering from political BS, the rôle of the Ad Library takes centre stage.
Facebook lets politicians scam its users by citing free expression and increased transparency about who is buying adverts and how much they are spending.
Here is today’s UK Ad Library (link above). It shows information about Sunday 9th November, as I write this post it is 0438 on the morning of Tuesday 12th November (GMT )
You can click on any of the entries for more details.
The openness with which politicians now lie is not something we are going to be able to do much about as gatekeepers and intermediaries, ie press barons and their digital counterparts, now allow all sorts of untruth to go unchallenged.
It’s a great time to be blogging about the truth, sadly a little too great.
Following yesterday’s post about Aadhaar the Movie, Irumbuthurai is a 2018 Indian Cyber Thriller in Malayalam in which someone steals the entire country’s personal data by using the Security Minister’s fingerprint.
When crime goes Meta.
Apparently the film has led to increased public concern about the security of the Aadhaar Biometric ID Card System.
All Governments are at War with their own People
This piece came out on Indian News website Livemint.com last week.
ISO / Pegasus
Indian government agencies use Pegasus, which can be used to spy via WhatsApp, from ISO, an Israeli firm currently being sued by Facebook.
All governments are at war with their own people especially those who don't have the funds to contest elections so conduct a soft war through humanitarianism. As technology advances, governments become increasingly sophisticated snoopers. My latest: https://t.co/srYtiKVL1k
Edward Snowden told an Israeli conference in late 2018 that ISO had been helping the Saudi Government spy on Jamal Kashoggi’s associates, as reported below by Whitney Webb of Mint Press.
Snowden: Israeli Spyware Used By Governments to Pursue Journalists Targeted for Assassination https://t.co/TGzBrZexSL
In June this year the Guardian reported that the head of the Serpentine Gallery Yana Peel was forced to resign because it had reported that she and her husband were co-owners of Novalpina Capital, a private equity firm that was the major shareholder in NSO.
The Serpentine Gallery accepts big donations from the Sackler Family who have made billions from Opioid addiction which kills thousands each year in the US alone.
In May, following reports of the Pegasus security threat the Guardian even published an editorial on it:
And completing the circle, Julia Carrie Wong just published this from HBO and the people over at Axios.
The CEO of Uber, Dara Khosrowshahi, who is also a board member of the New York Times Company, is trying to have his cake and eat it.
Pretending to be outraged by the murder of Jamal Kashoggi while at the same time being completely relaxed about the Saudi Government’s role in murdering Kashoggi.
Are we already in hell when we allow CEOs of enormous private loss making, industry destroying, market share grabbing foreign funded unicorn firms like Uber and Babylon, whose main expertise is borrowing money from Saudi Arabia and causing mass underemployment, to start making pronouncements in praise of political murder and compare it, favourably, with its own unnecessary death rate?
The things that are happening in India, Silicon Valley, Turkey and Saudi Arabia affect people in the UK as well as everywhere else. But as a good friend said to me the other day, all this info that is coming at us, much of it meaningful, then very often goes nowhere.
It is a golden age for PR and strategic comms in that sense.
The powerful can now simply get away with anything.
And as there is nothing yet that will stop them, they will go on and on.
The Economist and other papers have been talking about billionaires recently and how useful they are. They don’t get to stay billionaires unless they are complicit in all the spying and all the killing.
We are at the point where truth has given way to conjecture.
Facts can be reported but will never be acted upon.
Aaadhaar is India’s massive biometric ID Card system. And it’s flawed.
It takes it’s name from Hindi for Foundation or Base.
Aadhaar is run by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) under the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 (“Aadhaar Act 2016”).
The Indian Government referred to it as being voluntary when it started in 2014 but quickly made it compulsory.
People would be denied access to basic services if they couldn’t produce an Aadhaar card.
Quantify, Qualify
The age old urge to measure life for tax & regulatory purposes means Aadhaar is entering surveillance’s pantheon of legends.
Even passengers for Noah’s Ark were grouped in twos.
Gender may have been a unique identifier, but don’t quote me.
Genocide makes me Nervous
Hippopotami
Have you heard the one about the late Drug Lord Pablo Escobar’s Hippos?
The Garden of Eden
Back to Codex, the apple symbolises rather more than man’s biblical quest for perfect information.
Apparently the original Apple logo was a pen and ink drawing of Sir Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree.
For years it has been rumoured that Apple’s iconic logo, a stylized apple missing a bite on one side, was inspired by the circumstances surrounding the death of Alan Turing.
The groundbreaking mathematician and computer scientist committed suicide by eating a cyanide-laced apple in 1954.
British Intelligence agencies were making him take oestrogen to suppress his homosexual tendencies. He couldn’t take it any more.
One is reminded of the state-backed torture of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.
The Apple of Discord
Mālum Discordiae meaning the Apple of Discord plays with the spelling and pronunciation of malum which means apple with a long a and evil with a short one.
Paris was asked to judge a beauty contest between three goddesses because Zeus was too chicken.
Eris had turned up to a party she wasn’t invited to on account of her always starting trouble.
She brought with her the Apple of Discord.
It was Golden and would be given to the most beautiful woman at the party.
Zeus was asked to judge. He let Paris do it.
The next day, after bathing, the three goddesses each attempted to bribe Paris. Aphrodite, the Patron Goddess of Prostitutes, offered him the most beautiful woman in the world — Helena of Sparta.
He accepted and in return gave Aphrodite the Golden Apple, on which Eris is said to have inscribed: Kallistei meaning “to the most beautiful one”.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre this week with the photoPrince Andrew, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, Ghislaine MaxwellPrince Andrew at a Trade Event in Bankgok las weekPrince Andrew, Boris Johnson, & Carrie Symonds last nightPrince Andrew and Peter Mandelson’s friend Jeffrey EpsteinRoger Hallam of Extinction RebellionCarrie Symonds and Chris Packham CBE at 2019’s Birdfair in RutlandChris Packham at Extinction Rebellion London in 2019Chris Packham picking up CBE at Buckingham Palace with Extinction Rebellion tieVivienne Westwood honoured at Buckingham Palace
Paris was handed Helen which rather irritated her husband and sparked the Trojan War.
Apparently Zeus’ sister / wife Hera who had also been in the running for Most Beautiful Girl in the World was not best pleased with Paris either.
Gluck’s Chinese Women finishes with a ballet scene dedicated to Eris’s Apple of Discord.
Chinese Surveillance
Where China have their Social Credit system like Baidu, Ali Baba, and Tencent (BAT), the UK has Facebook / HMRC / Universal Credit, and India have Aadhaar.
Aadhaar Trailer
This film looks brilliant.
Vandana Shiva & Linsey McGoey
One shouldn’t talk about measuring life without mentioning Vandana Shiva and Linsey McGoey’s various projects with regard to Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Whereas Vandana Shiva is very concerned about patenting food and other data issues, McGoey goes for the Gates Foundation as a whole and measuring its effect on Global Health and Education Policy.
The Economist says the place where reform is needed is in intellectual property.
They cite George Lucas selling Lucas Film for $4 billion 40 years after Star Wars as the most compelling flaw in the economic system.
Osborne’s name appears in the credits for the Star Wars Film Force Awakens – he gave it tax relief.
But no mention of Industrial Scale Tax Avoidance, Lobbying, Rise of Political Lying, Censorship, Competition Policy, Billionaire Owned-Press or Highly Securitised Social Media.
Billionaires are better CEOs, according to the latest figures.
The FT’s Wealth Correspondent Stefan Wagstyl quotes the head of the ultra high net worth unit at UBS:
Deregulation doesn’t stand still.
