The Silencing of Gaza: How Media and Politics Shape Narratives of War. In recent months,…
Some say that corrupt billionaires are the problem.
Some say that a corrupt government is the problem.
But few realise that corrupt billionaires are running a corrupt government.
( Rose Winfold )
Which Party Is Out To Destroy Businesses?
In the past two months, under this Tory government, Carillion has crashed costing 1,400 jobs and Toys R Us and Maplin have followed with the loss of 5,700.
Retail experts are now warning 20,000 high street stores could go over the next two years.
Northamptonshire County Council is one of the first of many local authorities to admit it is close to bankruptcy, saved only by savage cuts of £40million.
And this week the Institute of Directors and the CBI, which represents 200,000 companies, praised Labour’s post-Brexit economic vision saying they are “putting jobs and living standards first”.
Can someone remind me, which party is the one that’s the friend of businesses and which is out to destroy them?
( Brian Reade, 03.03.2018 )
Abundance is not a number or acquisition.
It is the simple recognition of enoughness.
( Alan Cohen )
The Bookies’ Puppet In Parliament.
A Tory MP who has fought against slashing the maximum bet on high stakes gambling machines received thousands of pounds of tickets from bookies in the past year.
Philip Davies got tickets to top horse racing meetings, such as the Cheltenham Festival, from the likes of Ladbrokes.
Many of the freebies – worth £4,385 in total – included hospitality.
Campaign for Fairer Gambling spokesman Matt Zarb-Cousin said, “Philip Davies has been the bookies’ puppet in Parliament for years, cashing in on freebies.”
( Ben Glaze, 19.05.2018 )
Education spending for 16 to 19 year-olds has fallen by £1.2billion in real terms since 2010.
Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner said, “Despite their warm words, the Tories have slashed over a billion pounds of funding that should have been spent educating young people.”
( Keir Mudie, 08.04.2018 )
Political corruption works by having an equally corrupt legal system to protect it.
Teachers Are Forced To Buy Classroom Supplies Out Of Their Own Pocket.
If you want to know where austerity leads, look across the water to Donald Trump’s America.
A teacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was reduced to begging on a street corner to keep her school going after education spending cuts.
The process has already begun here, with parents being asked – a requirement, in fact – for monthly payments to help sustain their kids’ schooling.
In some disadvantaged areas, teachers are being forced to open food and clothing banks, and buy classroom supplies out of their own pockets.
Austerity has failed a generation in the USA, and it will do the same here too.
( Paul Routledge, 07.04.2018 )
The Number Of Homeless People Has More Than Doubled In The Last Five Years.
Last month, we heard how Tory-run Windsor council wanted to sweep every rough sleeper off its streets in time for the royal wedding.
Now we hear that Tory-run Bournemouth council have put bars on public benches to stop homeless people sleeping on them.
It’s as though they believe these poor sods are choosing this degrading, dangerous life.
And by shuffling them down the road the problem will go away.
Unless the root causes are tackled it won’t.
Their own Government’s figures show there were 4,751 people sleeping rough last autumn, a 15% rise on the previous year and more than double what it was five years ago.
Don’t they see the connection with austerity policies and changes to benefits, the rise in low-paid, insecure jobs, and out-of-control Rachman landlords?
Don’t they get that some people can hit rock bottom due to life-changing circumstances out of their control?
Or don’t they care?
The same people like to brag how this country has never been better off due to turfing out the last Labour government.
It doesn’t look like it does it?
( Brian Reade, 03.02.2018 )
Those who are weak, those who are afraid, those who are stupid, will more easily accept the policies and believe the propaganda from Government.
( Rose Winfold )
The Biggest Level Of Knife Crime Committed By 10 to 17 Year-Olds Since 2009.
Knife crime has almost doubled in parts of England and Wales over the past five years.
In 2017 there were 20,966 cautions or convictions involving blades – nearly 5,000 more than 2013.
But some areas experienced huge increases of up to 81%.
It comes after London’s murder rate overtook New York’s.
The Metropolitan Police said 56 people had been violently killed since January 1st., including five shootings and 31 stabbings.
Victor Olisa, a former senior officer in Tottenham, one of the city’s worst-hit areas, claimed police had now “lost control” of the capital.
In London there were 4,978 blade-related cautions or convictions last year – a 55% increase on the 3,206 in 2013.
Leicestershire experienced the biggest rise, with an 81% increase from 226 to 409.
In Bedfordshire the number went from 182 to 317 and Northamptonshire’s 186 rose to 327.
The number of 10 to 17 year-olds cautioned or charged with knife crime also hit 4,490 – the biggest level since 2009.
( Alan Selby and Matthew Davis, 08.04.2018 )
A free press is essential to our democracy, but much of our press isn’t very free at all.
I want media workers to be free to do their best work, not held back by billionaire owners, tech giants or the state.
( Jeremy Corbyn, 23.08.2018 )
Is The UK Government Lying Over The Skripal Incident ?
The United Kingdom unknowingly admitted that its government has been lying, accusing Russia of allegedly poisoning former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia by the nerve agent Novichok on March 4 in Salisbury.
The British government has already made two grave mistakes.
First, it reported that an assassin smeared a nerve agent on the door handle at Skripal’s home.
Second, according to the doctors of the hospital where Yulia Skripal is being treated, her condition is getting better and her health status is currently described as stable.
Previously, the same doctors stated that Sergei Skripal and his daughter have only 1% hope of survival and ‘will be invalids for life’.
Moreover, former chemical weapons scientist and former Russian chemical weapons’ program whistleblower Vil Mirzayanov, who is currently a leading western expert on toxic agents, assured the British media that two grams of Novichok will be enough to kill 500 people instantly.
He also told the Daily Mail: “These people are gone — this man and his daughter.
Even if they survive they will not recover.”
If Sergei and Julia Skripal were poisoned in front of their house, then they wouldn’t have been able to walk through Salisbury.
Thus, this fact completely excludes the use of nerve agent Novichok.
The earlier report that Skripal and his daughter had been attacked while sitting on a bench at a shopping mall has also been refuted by Scotland Yard.
Let us remind you, Scotland Yard detectives came to a conclusion that Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned at their house.
A particularly high concentration of agent was detected at the entrance door.
If Skripal was poisoned at his home, then the agent used against him cannot be a nerve gas.
A number of experts believe that such gases can kill people within a few minutes.
Skripal simply did not have time to walk to a restaurant or shopping centre, where he was eventually found.
There is no way that the agent used to poison Skripal and his daughter could be Novichok.
More likely the victims received an overdose of painkillers that are used for anaesthetics.
This show with the involvement of pseudo-experts and baseless allegations was specially staged by the British Government to increase tensions in Europe and contribute much to the rise of Russophobic sentiments around the world.
( Bassim al-Khalili, Global Research, April 04, 2018 )
The moral crisis of our age has nothing to do with gay marriage or abortion.
It’s insider trading, obscene CEO pay, wage theft from ordinary workers, Wall Street’s gambling addiction, corporate pay-offs to friendly politicians, and the billionaire takeover of our democracy.
( Robert Reich )
Really?
Two Russian Military Intelligence Officers arrived in the UK on March 2nd., 2018
(after being granted entry visas by the British Home Office?).
Yulia Skripal arrived in the UK on March 3rd., 2018
On March 4th., the two Russian ‘assassins’ used one of the most lethal nerve agents in the world in a botched attempt to murder Yulia Skripal and her father.
The two Russian ‘assassins’ left the UK later that day.
I saw some pretty decent placards at the initial women’s march in Washington last year, but there was one at the anniversary event last weekend which beat all-comers.
Seriously, what could ever beat this description of Donald Trump: “SUPER CALLOUS FRAGILE RACIST SEXIST LYING POTUS.”
Magnificent.
( Brian Reade, 27.01.2018 )
One Of The Most Sinister Politicians This Country Has Ever Produced.
Because he was educated at Eton and Oxford and produces sentences peppered with classical references in the poshest of posh voices, with a distracted look that hints those he is speaking to are beneath his intellect, he is seen by many as an eccentric genius.
That’s how it is in this cap-doffing, know-your-place country.
BBC presenter Steph McGovern was spot-on this week when she said that British professions and institutions have an inherent bias against people who retain their working-class voice.
Boris Johnson consistently spouts gibberish yet is lauded because of how he gibbers it.
I can’t decide if he is the greatest advert for not wasting money on a public school education as it clearly doesn’t boost a child’s intelligence.
Or if he’s the best advert for doing so, as he shows the system is rigged for public school products to reach the top no matter how ignorant, so long as they sound right.
But I do think Johnson is one of the most sinister politicians this country has ever produced.
Made even more dangerous by a class system that makes those at the top feel utterly indestructible regardless of their many flaws.
( Brian Reade, 03.03.2018 )
The Nazis used the term ‘Socialist’ to cover the fact that they were not socialists.
The clue is in the fact that they killed all the real socialists first.
Read some history.
( Penny Flynn )
This Is Life Today Under The Conservatives.
Malnourished children with grey skin filling their pockets with food from the school canteen.
A mother using tissues because she can’t afford tampons as she needs to pay for heat for her home.
A women dying of a heart attack after waiting 35 hours in a hospital corridor.
This isn’t Dickensian Britain.
This is life today under the Conservatives.
It’s nearly eight years since Labour lost power to the Tories.
On May 12, 2010, Britain took a different course.
A course that would put ideology before reason, dogma before compassion and selfishness before solidarity.
Cameron and Osborne, with their useful lackey Nick Clegg, introduced an age of austerity.
Where the richest and broadest shoulders weren’t forced to carry the weight, but the “just about managing” were.
Where the wealthy and big businesses got tax cuts but the working poor saw their benefits slashed.
And where students faced record education debts.
( John Prescott, 08.04.2018 )
We live in a time when ignorance is disguised as politics, propaganda is masked as news, and greed is dismissed as capitalism.
( Rose Winfold )
Politicians Getting Richer By The Blood Of Our Soldiers.
First, our enemies were the natives, then they were the Nazis, then after a while it was the communists.
Finally, at the pinnacle of what we’re calling civilization, our enemies are the Islamic terrorists.
Our enemies seem to change over the course of history along with our ways of fighting them.
But what hasn’t changed is government profit.
Politicians and leaders seem to always be getting richer by the blood of our soldiers.
Makes you wonder who the real enemy has been all this time.
In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way.
If the remain campaign win two-thirds to one-third that ends it.
( Nigel Farage, prior to the EU referendum )
Hoping The Streets Might Be Paved With Gold, And Not Blood.
More murders on the killing streets of the capital, confirming that statistically it’s more dangerous than New York.
Not that the figures give you the true picture.
The truth is there are two Londons.
The rich London, where crime is much lower, and the poor London, where people struggle to make a life.
Into this lethal mix comes the new element of gang warfare on social media, further criminalising young people, particularly the have-nots.
Dr Johnson famously said: “He who is tired of London is tired of life”.
Not so.
He who is tired of London is simply tired of London.
The crowds, the traffic, the crime, the ludicrously high prices, the tourists and the pollution.
And, well, all that goes with a capital city sucking in people who hope the streets might be paved with gold, and not blood.
( Paul Routledge, 07.04.2018 )
Tory MP Ben Bradley defending his call for unemployed men to have vasectomies.
What a shame his father didn’t have one, eh?
( Brian Reade, 27.01.2018 )
I twice wrote to Richard Branson about how bad his Virgin East Coast train service from Hull was, but he never replied.
So I’m glad the East Coast route is temporarily back in public hands.
Virgin and Stagecoach are the third private operators in a decade to fail on it.
But by allowing Branson to walk away, we’re losing £2billion.
When Labour nationalised the East Coast in 2009, it returned £1billion back to the taxpayer.
( John Prescott, 19.05.2018 )
Jeremy Corbyn Is An Anti-Racist, Not An Anti-Semite.
Firstly we need to restore some perspective.
The Labour party has thousands of Jewish members, many Jewish councillors, a number of prominent Jewish MPs and several Jewish members of its ruling council.
Many people at the heart of the Corbyn team, such as Jon Lansman, James Schneider and Rhea Wolfson are also Jewish.
Ed Miliband, the previous party leader, was Jewish (and suffered antisemitism at the hands of the press and the Conservatives).
I have been a member for five years and, as a Jew, have had only positive experiences.
Jeremy Corbyn has been MP for Islington North since 1983 – a constituency with a significant Jewish population.
Given that he has regularly polled over 60% of the vote (73% in 2017) it seems likely that a sizeable number of Jewish constituents voted for him.
As a constituency MP he regularly visited synagogues and has appeared at many Jewish religious and cultural events.
He is close friends with the leaders of the Jewish Socialist Group, from whom he has gained a rich knowledge of the history of the Jewish Labour Bund, and he has named the defeat of Mosley’s Fascists at the Battle of Cable as a key historical moment for him.
His 2017 Holocaust Memorial Day statement talked about Shmuel Zygielboym, the Polish Bund leader exiled to London who committed suicide in an attempt to awaken the world to the Nazi genocide.
How many British politicians have that level of knowledge of modern Jewish history?
( Joseph Finlay, a former Deputy Editor of the Jewish Quarterly, who co-founded a range of grassroots Jewish organisations such as Moishe House London, Wandering Jews, Jewdas and The Open Talmud Project, 02.03.2018 )
David Cameron spotted looking miserable in Disneyland Paris.
Is that because he was deemed too big to go on the Three Little Pigs ride?
( Brian Reade, 27.01.2018 )
All morons hate it when you call them a moron.
Government’s Analysis Suggests Our Economy Will Be Worse Off After Brexit.
So many lies and so much fear and ignorance about what Brexit meant were spread by both sides at the referendum that this country has seemed lost ever since.
Its sense of common purpose has gone and it’s slowly losing its marbles.
Europe asks us what we want but our Government can’t tell them because there is no united view, so there is no negotiating position.
A nation that was once admired for resolve and certainty is being mocked as a shambles.
And although many Leavers put that down to the sulking apathy of Remainers, it is really down to a Tory party that is terminally crippled over its view of Britain’s place in the modern world.
So paranoid and weak is Theresa May she won’t even publish her own Government’s analysis which suggests our economy will be worse off whatever the Brexit deal, in case the Brextremists try to sack her.
Britain may have voted for Brexit but until we have an idea what it looks like, how can we know it’s right for us?
You don’t look at a second-hand car you fancy online and buy it there and then.
You go and see it, kick the wheels, see if the mileage clock has been turned back and then decide.
Since June 2016, it has become clear that what we were asked to vote on was based on lies, fear, guess-work and emotion.
When a deal is struck we’ll have a more accurate picture of what Brexit means, risks, challenges, benefits, warts and all.
It’s surely in the interests of every Leave, Remain or Don’t Know voter to take a final, binding decision then.
( Brian Reade, 03.02.2018 )
The media is a closed shop for the privileged, the press being mostly run by wealthy oligarchs who defend a status quo from which they benefit.
( Owen Jones, 23.08.2018 )
Scotland Deserves Better.
A ‘no deal’ Brexit would be an unmitigated disaster – and the fact that UK Government is even talking about it is evidence of their abject failure.
That they once had the nerve to tell us that independence threatened our place in Europe adds insult to injury.
Scotland deserves better.
( Nicola Sturgeon, 23.08.2018 )
I have interacted with the police complaints and internal affairs division twice and both times I came away with the opinion that I was dealing with a blatantly corrupt group of people.
Tory Cuts Have Consequences.
The Tories’ “spending review” was all about slashing funding across the board.
Our nurses, teachers, police officers and fire crews saw their pay frozen for three years and then capped below inflation.
Valued public sector workers took a real-terms pay cut, with nurses seeing as much as 14% stripped from their wages.
Our councils have seen their funding cut by nearly 50% since 2010.
These cutbacks, combined with an ageing population, have created the perfect storm of a social care crisis.
Meanwhile our NHS is on its knees.
Labour’s performance targets are being broken or axed and there’s a shortage of 100,000 staff.
On top of that, the NHS faces a £20billion funding gap by the end of 2022.
That means more cuts.
Then look to our education.
More than 1,000 Sure Start Centres – giving our kids a great start in life and allowing mums to go back to work – have been closed, and 140,000 of our poorest kids will lose out on free school dinners.
And crime? 20,000 police officers lost.
Now crime is on the up and 50 people have been murdered on the streets of London since January.
Tory cuts have consequences.
And it’s the poorest and most vulnerable who are hit hardest.
It pains me to see what this country has become under the Tories.
( John Prescott, 08.04.2018 )
Not to be outdone by Boris Johnson calling for a bridge to be built over the Channel, DUP politicians are calling on Theresa May to cough up £20billion to build one between Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Why not? She’s given them everything else they want.
And if they’re stuck for a name, why not call it The Magic Money Bridge?
( Brian Reade, 27.01.2018 )
If We Disappear, Nature Will Thrive.
The truth is very bitter.
There is no purpose for humans.
The only purpose is to propagate and consume resources.
In Nature, humans are the most useless species.
If we disappear, Nature will thrive.
The bacteria, the fly, the insects, the algae, the plants all have more important roles.
The American people, and the citizens of all Western nations, have the right to know about every single thing their representatives do on their behalf.
After all, elected officials are merely representing those who hold the true power, the people.
The Tories Have Spent 70 Years Trying To Undermine The NHS.
Our PM declares we need a long-term plan for NHS and “we cannot afford to wait”.
That’s after chronic Conservative underfunding with a £20billion black hole and a freeze and cap on nurses’ pay.
Theresa May is not noted for long-term thinking or even carrying out her so-called statements, which change daily.
She declares she wants to raise more money for the NHS’s 70th anniversary.
But the Tories have spent 70 years trying to undermine its hospitals and staff.
Since the National Health Service was established by Labour in 1948 – bitterly opposed by the Tories – it has mostly been managed by Tory governments, lurching from crisis to crisis, especially the 18 years under Thatcher and Major.
By the time they left power, people waited 18 months on average for an op. Under Gordon Brown, Labour poured a huge amount into the NHS, restoring it to the European average healthcare expenditure.
It cut that wait to 18 weeks.
Labour then proposed further taxation by putting a penny on National Insurance, ring-fencing it for the NHS.
This was bitterly opposed by the Conservatives.
Now May is considering the same thing.
She says she wants a 10-year programme with extra taxation funding to be spent on hospitals and social services.
As we see so often, Theresa May and Theresa may not.
If she’s really serious about helping the NHS she can reverse her cuts to corporation tax, inheritance tax, the bankers’ levy and capital gains tax that will cost the UK £70billion by 2022.
By all means increase National insurance to pay for our NHS.
But don’t do it to subsidise tax breaks for a privileged and wealthy few.
( John Prescott, 01.04.2018 )
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