Truth v Propaganda

People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
( Aldous Huxley )

Who really wields the power in the UK?
Bureaucrats, lobbyists, mandarins and ex-spies are the ones pulling the strings behind the scenes – this is the secretive Deep State – the secret manipulation of Government by the wealthy and powerful, the ones pulling the strings on multi-million-pound government deals with multi-nationals, military contractors and pharmaceutical firms.
( Lewis Panther, 25.02.2018 )

Chronic Trade Gaps And Record National Debt.
A Government Wellbeing survey claims we’ve all become happier over the past year.
But I fear the Office for National Statistics is mistaking the kind of manic, suicidal grin a funeral mourner wears when they return home to see their house on fire, for a smile.
Because with every passing day it feels like we’re all becoming extras in a fifth-rate Pinewood comedy called Carry On Down The Khazi, with the woefully inept leading actors strutting across the world stage giving everyone outside these shores a belly laugh.
David Cameron introduced these Wellbeing scores to prove there are other statistics outside of chronic trade gaps and record national debt to show how well Britain is doing.
( Brian Reade, 11.11.2017 )

Ideologies are exportable, and legitimise attempts to alter the internal regimes of other countries ( such as the USA’s recent attempt to bring ‘democracy’ to Iraq ).
( Peter Hitchens )

Tory Party vice chairman Ben Bradley apologised for a libellous tweet about Jeremy Corbyn.
He also agreed to make a donation to charities of his choice.
He deleted the tweet claiming the Labour leader sold British secrets to communist spies almost immediately.
( Keir Mudie, 25.02.2018 )

A Grim Taste Of Things To Come.
Lucky me.
I was in Italy for the dawn of 2018.
New Year’s Day is my birthday and I’d go to the ends of the Earth to avoid it altogether if I could.
I dislike birthdays.
Anyhow, arriving in Italy it was a birthday treat to still be able to relish the expediency of the EU passport control queue.
The non-EU queue was long and slow.
The immigration officials unsmiling and suspicious.
A grim taste of things to come whenever we venture across the channel come 2019.
( Fiona Phillips, 06.01.2018 )

Why have we unquestionably allowed public servants to replace the three-letter word ‘lie’ with the three-word phrase ‘error of judgment’?
( Brian Reade, 24.02.2018 )

So, after all the agony and vitriol over our parting of the ways with the EU, our new, blue, post-Brexit, British passports are to be made in France.
Tu ne pouvais pas le faire!
In other words: you couldn’t bloody make it up.
Well, you couldn’t, could you?
( Fiona Phillips, 24.03.2018 )

A Vague Promise Of Jam Tomorrow For Nurses.
“This is a budget for the future,” smirked Chancellor Philip Hammond.
Yes, but whose?
His own, of course.
Hardline Tory Brexit MPs want him out, but he did just about enough to keep his place round the Cabinet table.
For now.
“A very good job,” gushed Mrs May.
At saving his own skin, for sure.
The euphoria won’t last when voters grasp his do-nothing budget was more important for what it didn’t say than what it did say.
He said nothing about the plight of pensioners.
Not a word, a scandalous omission.
Nothing about ending wage austerity for millions of dedicated public service workers, except a vague promise of jam tomorrow for nurses.
He was silent about the cap on energy prices promised in the Tory election manifesto only six months ago, despite shock new figures of surging premature winter deaths of old folk.
Billions for Brexit without a deal, but no relief for hard-pressed social care providers, or the elderly and vulnerable who rely on their services.
Spreadshit Phil may have pulled the wool over the eyes of his Tory pals with an hour of flannel and borrowed funnies.
The MPs are easily taken in.
( Paul Routledge, 25.11.2017 )

Due to Government cuts, around 900,000 old folk in the UK on Pension Credit are no longer eligible for emergency cold weather payments.
Targeting the vulnerable seems to be the policy of the Conservative Party.

A firm that employs Tory former Chancellor George Osborne, and pays him £650,000 a year as an advisor, partly owns the French company that won a controversial contract to make blue British passports.
( Andrew Gregory, 24.03.2018 )

The Enemy Lies Within.
It seems that the American people have been conditioned to hate Russia.
Both the Democrats and the Republicans accuse Russia of meddling in elections and hacking just about everyone.
The people of America need to wake up.
Russia poses no threat to the West, they have more important things to attend to.
I think the ‘enemy’ of America lies within.
( Dion Felsrow )

With another £50billion found for Brexit, is May’s magic money tree the most bountiful tree in the entire history of trees?
( Brian Reade, 02.12.2017 )

Britain Refuses To Back Investigation Into War Crimes By Saudi Arabia.
Britain vowed not to back a proposed UN investigation into possible war crimes by Saudi Arabia in Yemen after the Kingdom threatened to review its trade with nations who backed the move.
A Saudi-led coalition has been waging war in northern Yemen for more than two years against Houthi rebel forces who are opposed to the country’s leader, President Abdrabbuh Mansour.
More than 10,000 have been killed – many of whom are said to be civilians – and some 50,000 injured, figures show, after mostly air strike attacks by fighter jets dispatched by Riyadh.
It comes after figures from charity War Child UK claimed that British arms companies have earned more than £6billion from trade with Saudi Arabia since the conflict erupted.
UN members Holland and Canada have called for an inquiry into alleged war crimes by the Saudis in its campaigns against the Houthi forces over its border with Yemen.
But the Kingdom said it “will not accept” any outside investigation into the allegations and warned countries that supported the move could see their trade with the Saudis suffer.
A letter distributed by the kingdom read: “Adopting The Netherlands/Canadian draft resolution in the Human Rights Council may negatively affect the bilateral political economic relations with Saudi Arabia”, according to the news agency AFP.
Britain’s Middle East and North Africa minister Alistair Burt said “finding a resolution for the conflict in Yemen was a high priority”, but added the UK would not support the proposed UN inquiry.
( Independent, 28.09.2017 )

Russian gangsters with their stolen loot are allowed to live freely in Britain.
Russian traitors are given refuge there.
And the UK Government descend into uncontrollable, deranged hysteria over the consequences of their own shifty dealings.

Tory Party Members Want To Bring Back The Death Penalty.
It’s rare to see an opinion poll play out with such chilling accuracy the moment it’s announced.
But that’s what’s happened to a survey of Tory party members which shows that a majority of them want to bring back the death penalty, 60% think people of the same sex should not be allowed to marry, and 90% believe that the pain of austerity should be upped.
Well done YouGov.
( Brian Reade, 06.01.2018 )

Just by listening to, and observing the actions of some people, even some in our Governments, it does seem that intelligence is in short supply.
Common-sense is almost non-existent among those who are in charge.
Greed, self-interest and vanity is rampant among those in power.

The Weak And The Vulnerable Left To Wither.
Thousands of unnecessary deaths, millions suffering pain and misery.
Homelessness, suicides, violent crime at highest recorded levels.
The money-laundering, drug capital of Europe.
This is the UK, ruled by an incompetent, greedy, selfish, arrogant government.
The weak and the vulnerable and the powerless are blamed for economic ills and left to wither.
While those at the top, responsible for all the shit and all the misery, are exonerated and grow richer.

I suppose it’s possible that Russia, a country with no ideology, a falling population and a GDP the size of Italy, is in some way threatening western democracy, though I can’t think why.
The main threat to western democracy is intellectual decline of western media and politicians.
( Peter Hitchens )

A Life That Cared Not The Slightest Jot For Others Less Fortunate.
I visited a place in Madrid last weekend named after Britain’s other woman Prime Minister, and was pleased to see what Plaza Margaret Thatcher had become – a bare, graffiti-painted brutalised concrete square which has fallen into austerity-driven neglect.
The only building in the plaza , named by right-wing Spanish politicians to annoy the left, is a disused bank which is now a squatter’s hostel.
And in one corner stands a mini-cardboard city where the young, homeless locals huddle.
Maybe not what the Iron Lady would have thought her legacy demanded, but what it deserved – for believing there was no such thing as society.
If you’re ever in Madrid, go and look at the perfect epitaph for a life that cared not the slightest jot for others less fortunate than herself.
( Brian Reade, 02.12.2017 )

Politics is no longer Left v Right –– It’s Truth v Propaganda.

Most world religions denounced war as a barbaric waste of human life.
We treasured the teachings of these religions so dearly that we frequently had to wage war in order to impose them on other people.
( Jon Stewart )

Almost Half Of British Arms Exports Go To Saudi Arabia.
The UK Government has absolutely no problem murdering innocent civilians on foreign soil.
It has no problem engaging in acts of aggression with and on behalf of other nations.
It has no problem extracting profits from the sale of armaments to genocidal regimes.
It has no problem subjecting its own citizens to the head-choppers and covering up their massive, organised, systematic raping of British girls.
Almost half of British arms exports go to Saudi Arabia, up fivefold since they intervened in Yemen’s civil war.
British bombs are being dropped by British planes maintained by British personnel over one of the world’s poorest countries.
Tens of thousands of people have died, if not from direct bombardment then from starvation or disease as a result of the Saudi-led blockade and the deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure.
The Department for International Trade employs hundreds of civil servants as sales reps for the private arms industry.
No other export industry of the same size enjoys such a perk.
Liam Fox, the International Trade Secretary, has said he would ‘personally lead on helping the defence and security industries to export’.

Nothing made me howl louder than David Beckham’s safely nurtured angelic image being shattered after leaked emails showed he’d grovelled around the Queen angling for a knighthood, slagged off Katherine Jenkins for being ahead of him in the queue and called the Honours Committee a “bunch of c***s” for overlooking him.
( Brian Reade, 30.12.2017 )

Holidaymakers Ripped Off.
Consumers are being taken for a ride by “must end soon” holiday offers.
Which? tracked the prices on time-limited offers and found the same breaks cost the same or less in 16 out of 30 cases after the deadline passed.
Virgin offered one Florida holiday at £792 if booked by August 17 but it dropped to just £677 on August 18.
Rory Boland, of Which?, said: “Most of the time-limited deals we looked at are nothing of the sort. Don’t be fooled.”
( Ruki Sayid, 30.12.2017 )

I don’t blame Farage for hating the EU really.
Imagine having to keep attending an institution where everyone is smarter than you even in their second language.
( Ralf Little )

What A Dirtbag.
Billionaire Sir James Dyson believes we should walk away from the EU negotiations with no deal, despite such a scenario hitting the poorest hardest.
He also thinks the biggest advantage of Brexit is that it will become easy for firms to fire workers and says corporation tax should be cut to zero to help bosses.
This is the same patriotic knight who closed his vacuum cleaner factory at a cost of 600 jobs and moved production to Malaysia where the labour is cheaper.
Ah well, at least he’s written his own epitaph – “Dyson: What a dirtbag”.
( Brian Reade, 18.11.2017 )

I am here to acknowledge and represent the African-American girls whose stories don’t lead on the evening news.
I represent the African-American women who are victims of gun violence, who are simple statistics instead of being vibrant, beautiful girls full of potential.
( Naomi Wadler )

The Magic Money Tree.
The UK Government have picked another £48million from the magic money tree to invest in building a chemical weapons defence centre to tackle what it says is a growing threat from Russia and North Korea.
The sick and the homeless and the children in poverty will have to wait.

Liam Fox has flown around the world eight times in a vain attempt to secure post-Brexit trade deals with the bill for his 219,000 air miles topping £100,000.
( Brian Reade, 06.01.2018 )

At Least Parliament Stood Up To That Man On A Bike.
Days after MPs questioned cyclist Bradley Wiggins on his ethics, the Prime Minister, The Queen and the Archbishop of Canterbury rolled out the red carpet for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
That’s the man in charge of a country which brings in itinerant labour to build its skyscrapers treating them as virtual slaves, has one of the worst records in the world for torture, hangs gays, lashes rape victims for allowing adultery to happen, finances Islamist extremists and is guilty of horrific war crimes in Yemen.
Still, at least Parliament has stood up to that man on the bike who allegedly did something that broke no rules.
It’s good to have our ethical priorities in order, eh?
( Brian Reade, 10.03.2018 )

Every single major BBC commentator is a Tory voter.
Many have actually worked for the party in the past.
Bias is therefore unavoidable, whether conscious or not.
( Mel Melvin )

Minted, But Greedy And Selfish.
I’m still feeling slightly queasy about the Paradise Papers’ revelations in which people who have got more money than you could ever imagine can’t bear to part with much of it in order to keep our public services running.
They don’t use those services of course, because in doing so they would have to come into contact with ordinary people – the very folk who have enabled them to earn the money they don’t want to part with.
What I don’t understand is, if you are minted to the tune of several hundred million pounds, or even ‘just’ ten million, why would you be so desperate to avoid parting with less than half of it for the common good?
Still, the loopholes are there, so why not take advantage?
That’s the key question.
Why is no-one answering it?
That’s another question.
( Fiona Phillips, 11.11.2017 )

I believe it is clearly in our national interest to remain a member of the European Union.
( Theresa May, 25.04.2016 )

Two schools in Theresa May’s Maidenhead constituency are so skint they are asking parents to cough up £190 a-year to provide basics such as pens, glue, exercise books and scissors.
How ironic.
They are exactly what she needs to cut out David Cameron’s 2016 resignation letter, paste it on to a piece of paper, sign it and hand it in.
( Brian Reade, 18.11.2017 )

Best For Britain?
Hungarian/American multi-billionaire financier George Soros plans to give up to half a billion to overturn the referendum result decided by the British people.
He’s handed it to a campaign group called Best For Britain.
Soros has got an interesting record on doing what’s best for Britain.
He took on the Bank of England by betting against the pound in 1992.
Britain was then part of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, a device to align all currencies ahead of the introduction of the euro.
This meant us following the German mark.
But because the Tories had made our economy weaker than Germany’s, their attempt to follow the ERM made matters worse, leading to low interest rates and high inflation.
The Tories started putting up interest rates to try to boost the pound’s value, but Soros began shorting the pound – effectively selling heavily on the currency.
The Tories were then forced to push up our interest rates from 10 to 12% in one day and up to 15% the following morning.
When that failed to stop the crisis, they pulled out of the ERM on Black Wednesday, costing the taxpayer over £3billion and earning Soros $1billion.
Now he wants to interfere again in Britain’s business by making us stay in the EU.
( John Prescott, 18.02.2018 )

We could have two referendums.
As it happens, it might make more sense to have the second referendum after the renegotiation is completed.
( Jacob Rees-Mogg, 24.10.2011 )

The Right’s Poster Boy Declared That Fighting For Brexit Had Left Him Skint.
One of the many bugbears of right-wingers is poverty figures.
You’ve heard them whine about liberal ignorance whenever reports come out saying millions live on the breadline.
Poverty, they say, is when you have no shoes or gruel, not when you can’t afford a plasma TV and a Happy Meal.
And they may have a point.
Or rather they may have had a point.
Until the Right’s poster boy for living in the past, Nigel Farage, declared that fighting for Brexit had left him “skint”.
His definition of skint being a £90,000 salary as an MEP, a five-figure salary as a radio presenter, a shares portfolio, a £4million house in Chelsea and the prospect of a pension from those nasty Europeans worth £73,000 per year.
Never let them decry the concept of poverty again.
( Brian Reade, 23.12.2017 )

People, including politicians, who express opinions that go against the agenda of the Government are being insulted and vilified, not only by the Tory-supporting media, but by Government ministers.
This is not democracy, nor is it respectful, nor is it how Britain should be.

Propaganda From The Right.
They did it to the first Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald with the fake Zinoviev Letter.
They did it to Harold Wilson and they did it to trade union leader Jack Jones.
And now the Right are doing it to Jeremy Corbyn.
Quoting dodgy East European sources to prove that everyone on the Left is a spy who wants to sell this country into the hands of communism.
Thank God they think Corbyn is that much of a threat to their Thatcherite agenda.
( Brian Reade, 24.02.2018 )

The US, the EU and Israel have a list of targets and agendas in the Middle East but Russia poses a problem, disrupting the outcome in Syria and supporting Iran.
Just one reason for the scaremongering, propaganda, and false claims that Russia is a threat to the West.
( Dion Felsrow )

The Chief Peddler Of The Lie.
Before Boris Johnson was Foreign Secretary, he warned that if Turkey entered the EU, 78million people would flee its borders, but now backs that country joining it.
His maiden speech urged people to march on Russia’s London Embassy in protest at Syrian air strikes.
Moscow called him a clown.
And he accused EU leaders of sharing Hitler’s dream of creating a European super-state.
Talking of which, he was the chief peddler of the lie that Britain would be £350million a week better off once we left the EU.
Now that it turns out we’ll have to pay a £50billion divorce bill, not a peep is heard from him.
A bill not helped by Johnson telling Brussels he wanted to have his cake and eat it in a trade deal, and they could “go whistle” for their billions.
Most damning of all were claims this week that Foreign Office officials told the Irish Government “not to listen to whatever he had to say” ahead of a recent visit to Dublin.
This is the UK’s Foreign Secretary we’re talking about.
( Brian Reade, 02.12.2017 )

A country where the media attack the opposition rather than the government is a country where freedom is under threat.
( Peter Hitchens )

He Turns Every Matter Into A Joke.
Just look at him.
Boris Johnson.
The likeable adulterer, liar and buffoon.
The man so desperate to seek attention, he turns every matter, no matter how important it is, into a joke.
Admittedly, he does make some of us smile.
But his is the face that looks out to the world on behalf of us all.
And that’s not funny, as jailed British mum Nazarin Zaghari-Ratcliffe found out when, in a diplomatic effort to secure her freedom from an Iranian jail, Boris spouted inaccuracies which could lead to her sentence being increased instead.
( Fiona Phillips, 11.11.2017 )

She is a charisma free, mentally fragile calamity in waiting, which would be wonderful if she were merely a Tory leader.
But she’s in charge of Britain at its most crucial negotiating time with foreign powers since Suez.
And rather than resemble a statesman from the 1950s she looks increasingly like she’s playing the senile nun in Call The Midwife.
( Brian Reade, on UK PM Theresa May, 24.02.2018 )

The Unlucky Victims Of Cameron’s Childish Vanity.
Whose fault is it that so many of our fellow creatures have drowned in the Mediterranean on the way to Britain?
Whose fault will it be when many more do so, crying out for help that will not come, in the future?
One thing is quite certain.
Completely avoidable actions have made this crisis much worse.
The worst action of all was the unforgivable stupid decision by David Cameron and others to over-throw Colonel Gaddafi’s state in Libya.
I am still amazed that this blunder did not destroy Mr Cameron, as it should have done.
Like all shallow modern politicians, he wanted a cheap and victorious war to make him seem more important than he is.
Libya and its people were the unlucky victims of his childish vanity.
Not only did this bird-brained action turn Libya into a hideous, bloody chaos without hope, it removed the single most important barrier between Europe and the Third World.
Without Gaddafi’s stringent control of his coastline, the economic refugees of the whole of Africa and much of the Middle East (many of them fleeing wars and conflicts begun or encouraged by us) can clamber into coffin ships and set out across the Mediterranean.
Liberal vanity kills and goes on killing.
And it is all the worse because the culprits continue to have such high opinions of themselves.
( Peter Hitchens, 02.11.2014 )

Politicians and media fear-mongering demonising Russia for political agenda is now the norm in the Western world.
Russia pose no threat to the West.
We all need to wake up and look closely at who benefits from the propaganda and the scare-mongering.

Being Thick Is A Bonus When You Apply To Become A Tory MP.
I’m A Celebrity winner Georgia Toffolo says that although she is a staunch Tory supporter, she couldn’t become an MP because “I’m nowhere near intelligent enough”.
Oh I don’t know about that, me old Toff.
Take Nadine Dorries, the Tory MP who entered the jungle five years before you, who’s not exactly pushing for MENSA recognition.
Last month she praised the DUP for their genius in bringing about the Good Friday Agreement, despite them refusing to take part in negotiations.
And this month she called for the deselection of the eleven Tory Brexit rebels on grounds of disloyalty.
Despite her voting against her party leadership 43 times, being suspended from the House for entering the jungle and bragging that she’s “an expert at rebelling”.
If Dorries is anything to go by, being thick is a bonus when you apply to become a Tory MP.
( Brian Reade, 23.12.2017 )

In 1991 when the Communist Party was crushed and the USSR collapsed, the Russians believed there was an unspoken agreement that, in return for this, they would be allowed their dignity.
Yet for the last 25 years they have been falsely accused of all sorts to hide Western agendas.
( Dion Felsrow )

A Case Of Anti-Immigrant Hypocrites?
Nigel Farage has praised UKIP leader Henry Bolton for leaving his wife for a young model on the grounds that “at least he’s being talked about now”.
Talked about being one way of defining mercilessly mocked.
Still, it’s allowed us to discover that Bolton carries on the uncanny habit of populist, right-wing leaders being in thrall to foreign women.
Bolton’s first wife was Danish and his second one Russian.
Farage was married to a German before dating a French woman.
Arron Banks, ex-UKIP backer who’s flirting with setting up his own right-wing party, is married to a Russian.
And I’m sure Paul Nuttall claimed he’d been out with Martina Hingis and Heidi Klum.
It’s a pattern repeated in America where Donald Trump’s first wife was Czech and his second Slovenian.
What do men who are all vehemently against foreigners living in their country see in these women?
Do they think that, with being able to master more than one European language, they’ll help them translate their first editions of Mein Kampf?
Or is it simply a case of these anti-immigrant hypocrites spouting: “Do as I say, not who I do”?
( Brian Reade, 13.01.2018 )

NHS hospitals are borrowing record amounts of money from the Government.
Figures reveal that Hospital trusts owed £7.5billion in loans in 2016/17, up from £5billion on the previous year.
The Government should be giving, not loaning it to them.
After all, it’s taxpayers’ money.

The claim is not hysterical.
From health to disability benefits to prisons, it’s clear that Tory policies cost lives.
( Zoe Williams, Guardian, 13.11.2017 )

The harsh austerity plan rolled out under consecutive Conservative Governments has been linked to 120,000 deaths in Britain.
( Jack Peat, London Economic, 16.11.2017 )

Were Shady Dealings Done By The Queen’s Advisors?
The Paradise Papers show The Queen and her heir to have invested millions in offshore trusts and companies while living off the fat of our taxes.
Ah, say the defenders, these shady dealings were done by their advisors and they “probably didn’t know what was going on with their investments”.
Why not?
What else do they do with their days?
The Queen’s sister, Margaret, who spent her life in bed being serviced with vodka and tobacco, arranged for most of her £20million fortune to go to her kids before she died, thus escaping death duties.
This is a Firm who, in the midst of austerity cuts, demanded and received inflation-busting pay rises, plus £370million to do up one of its palaces.
The only acceptable defence is that The Queen can see the future under this dying Government and has bunged her wealth in her Crown Dependencies so when the world stops laughing at us and the recriminations start she can do a midnight flit.
( Brian Reade, 11.11.2017 )

Oil giants employ an army of ex-government employees and politicians to paint a picture of the industry in an eco-friendly shade of green, according to campaigning investigators.
( Lewis Panther, 25.02.2018 )

State department records released in January showed the big four silicon valley firms spent $50million on lobbying in Donald Trump’s first year in office.
( Lewis Panther, 25.02.2018 )

Brexit And UK Fishing Rights.
The biggest lie perpetrated by Brexiteers like Michael Gove, Nigel Farage and Jacob Rees-Mogg is that we would instantly take back control of our fishing industry.
It’s not EU quotas that have led to the collapse of the fishing industry.
It’s the fact that for years we have over-fished.
EU quotas on fishing were a way of controlling over-fishing to allow fish stocks to increase so we could have a sustainable industry.
And the UK had the second-largest allocation.
But it is clear countries like France and Spain didn’t even inform the EU how much fish they were landing, so over-fishing continued.
Also, technology led to smaller vessels being replaced by huge trawlers over-fishing on an industrial scale.
It was the greed and profit maximisation of the industry that has affected our coastal communities, not the EU.
Ironically, the UK fishing industry is in much better shape than any of our EU partners.
Profits are continuing to grow and are the highest across the EU.
And the Government actually decides how its EU fishing quota is distributed.
If it really cared about the fishing industry, it would ensure these coastal communities with smaller vessels were allowed to fish more.
Instead, we have larger foreign vessels being registered in the UK but landing their fish overseas.
Brexit won’t change that.
The Government can, but it has done nothing.
( John Prescott, 25.03.2018 )