I agreed with Brian Eno, Nigel Kennedy, Alexei Sayle, Grime4Corbyn
and other artists when they wrote this to Jeremy Corbyn ….. “As artists and
writers, we would like to thank you for raising political awareness
in our country to a level not seen since the end of World War II.
Your humanity, courage and insight have mobilised a new generation of
socialist activists.”
5
and anyway he and his supporters should be ‘taken out and shot’
8
so it may not shock you if I tell you that Mafia expert Roberto Saviano tells us that the UK is the most corrupt country in the world
Have
you heard of Mathew Hopkins? He was the Witchfinder General at the
time of the English Civil War; tasked with proving that the accused
(most of them women) had engaged in a ‘covenant with the devil’.
Methods of investigation included sleep deprivation, cutting the arm
with a blunt knife, and lowering the accused into water. Yes you
guessed it. If you drowned you were innocent!
Witches
were said to have the “Devil’s Mark”, a mole or birthmark. If
lacking these, ‘witch prickers’ were employed to prick the
accused with special needles to find them.
Thank
God we live in better times.
Soon
after Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the UK Labour Party a
right-wing witchunt started under the guise of ‘anti-semitism’.
Jews were not going to escape this and anti-Zionist Jews, Jackie
Walker, David Rosenberg, Tony Greenstein and Moshe Machover (since
reinstated) headed the list. If Einstein were still alive he would
have joined them.
Notably Jews have taken a central and brave role in exposing the connections between Israel and US police forces. Sir Keir Starmer should be advised to put down his witch pricker and read this report from Jewish Voice for Peace
Former
MP Chris Williamson and former London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, were
soon to be added.
What
is the ‘Devil’s Mark’ they all share? They have dared to
criticise the state of Israel and speak up for the Palestinians. Not coincidentally, all of them were
and are actively anti-racist.
Prof Norman Finkelstein, who lost his job at Chicago’s DePaul
university for his ‘anti-semitism’ puts it powerfully about Ken
Livingstone’s expulsion, saying:
"Frankly,
I find that obscene. It’s doubtful these Holocaust-mongers have a
clue what the deportations were, or of the horrors that attended
them. I remember my late mother describing her deportation. She was
in the Warsaw Ghetto. The survivors of the Ghetto Uprising, about
30,000 Jews, were deported to Maijdanek concentration camp. They were
herded into railroad cars. My mother was sitting in the railroad car
next to a woman who had her child. And the woman – I know it will
shock you – the woman suffocated her infant child to death in front
of my mother. She suffocated her child, rather than take her to where
they were going. What
are they doing? Don’t they have any respect for the dead? All these
desiccated Labour apparatchiks, dragging the Nazi holocaust through
the mud for the sake of their petty jostling for power and position.
Have they no shame?
*************************
I
spent today on Hampstead Heath with a friend and over the pasta salad
and tepid Nescafe, we started talking about how we are nothing more
than bundles of energy. We hadn’t gone far into Quantum Theory when
she pulled from her bag a Guardian interview with US actor Gary
Busey, star of Big Wednesday and Point Break. More importantly for me
he used to be drummer with Leon Russell and played Holly in the 1978
Biopic, ‘Buddy Holly’.
He
and I have our age in common, 75, and our medical history, subdural
haematoma.
There
we part. He writes that at the time of his brain surgery, “I went
to the other side – the spiritual realm … I was surrounded by
angels. Balls of light floating all around me. And I felt trust,
love, protection and happiness like you cannot feel on earth. It’s
the feeling the angels live in … And three balls of light came up
to me and talked to me. The one on the left talked to me in an
androgynous voice and said the direction I was going in was good …
And every time he spoke, I felt so loved, like a little baby in the
arms of his brother … . It is transformation from one dimension to
another and it is painless, free and lovely.”
At
the time of my haematoma operation I
too was surrounded by angels, but
mine
were present in the material
form of surgeon, anaesthetist,
nurses
and other pre- and post- op staff.
I was back
surrounded by my ‘angels’ three years later at the time
of my heart surgery, stroke and heart infection. Quite a bit of pain,
minimised with drugs, free thanks to the NHS and lovely in the sense
of the care I received from the health service, my family and
friends.
On
my way home from the Heath I passed many houses with ‘Thank You
NHS’ and one with ‘Thank God for Immigrants’ Yes I join with
these sentiments and with the Deity thanks. My brain surgeon was
Nigerian, my heart surgeon Egyptian and my favourite nurse,
post-stroke, Filipino.
I
don’t want to over-diss Gary Busey, after all he lives in Malibu,
and who, after his brain surgery, helped create the US Traumatic Brain
Injury Act, which led to helmets being mandatory for motorbike
drivers and passengers. But he is said to be a friend of Donald Trump
so I reinstate 9/10 of my criticism
The
Guardian all but ignored the leaked review showing that Labour's
Blairite officials sabotaged Corbyn's chances at the 2017 general
election. But it gives front page billing to a new Labour report
suggesting that the party needs to swing dramatically rightwards to
win in 2024.
Jonathan
Cook
His
rivals know that Corbyn's egalitarian policy proposals could easily
resonate with Britons of all races, religions and ethnicities. This
is why instead of attacking his ideas and policies, they are
attacking him personally
Tony
Greenstein
With
the destruction of Jeremy Corbyn Northern European social democracy
failed to re-establish itself in the UK. I find it rather troubling
that Keir Starmer seems more interested in suppressing this report
than acting on its alarming findings.
Craig
Murray
I
would like to refer you to Craig Murray’s analysis on the
Labour Party report on anti-semitism complaints. Yes the report that
is being buried by Sir Keir Starmer. This is an abbreviated version.
“With
the destruction of Jeremy Corbyn Northern European social democracy
failed to re-establish itself in the UK. I find it rather troubling
that Keir Starmer seems more interested in suppressing this report
than acting on its alarming findings. The report conclusively refutes
the accusation that delays were occasioned by Jeremy Corbyn or his
office, or that his office displayed any sympathy for anti-semitism.
In fact, the opposite is the case. Corbyn’s office showed a proper
hatred of anti-semitism, but also an alarming willingness to throw
good people under the bus on very flimsy allegations of
anti-semitism.
"Labour HQ was staffed by right wingers so
vehemently anti-Corbyn that they actively wanted the Conservatives to
win elections. Senior members of staff were messaging each other
opposing any increase in corporation tax and opposing
re-nationalisation of the railways as “Trot” policies.
'The case
of the very right wing Gen Secretary, John McTernan, is instructive.
McTernan had taken to writing articles in the Daily Telegraph
praising the Tories and attacking Labour, but the Governance and
Legal Unit of Party HQ refused to take action against him. His
abusive language on Twitter and elsewhere, included describing Labour
MPs who nominated Corbyn as “morons”; tweeting that Corbyn was a
“traitor”; describing “Corbynistas” as racist; calling Corbyn
a “Putin-hugging, terrorist-loving, Trident-hater”; and writing
in the Daily Telegraph that all of Corbyn’s supporters were “online
trolls”.
'Meanwhile left wingers were being thrown out of the
party for having advocated a Green vote years before they joined, or
for calling MPs who supported the Iraq war “warmongers”. The
report makes an overwhelming case that the Governance and Legal Unit
of the Labour Party failed to take action on accusations of
anti-semitism because it was devoting all of its energies to a
factional effort to remove Corbyn supporters from the party.
'These
right wing staff were hoping for Labour electoral defeats in order to
get rid of Corbyn. HQ staff set up another organisation based in
another building, to divert party funds and secretly channel them to
the campaigns of their favoured right wing MPs.
Support for
British military attacks abroad appeared to be the touchstone issue
for who was “in” and who was “out” with Labour Party HQ
staff.
'Corbyn correctly, stated something that had been
unsayable in mainstream UK political discourse – that British
invasions abroad provoke terrorism at home. Labour Party HQ staff
hoped and believed this would sink Corbyn and were actively wishing
Labour to fall in the polls.
"The Labour HQ staff had been
inherited from the Blair years, and factional loyalty and a history
of right wing political activity were much more important in
employment decisions than qualifications or competence.
"The
Governance and Legal Unit, which handled the complaints of
anti-semitism, was staffed by vehemently anti-Corbyn right wingers
and was also useless. The report hints throughout that the failure to
deal with anti-semitic Labour Party members was a deliberate act by
party HQ staff in order to make Corbyn look bad. The report proves
conclusively that allegations of unwarranted interference from
Corbyn’s office to block anti-semitism action are malicious
lies.
"John Ware, a freelance journalist, was hired by the BBC to
make the panorama programme “Is Labour Anti-Semitic” despite his
history of anti-Muslim, and specifically anti-Palestinian,
propaganda.
"Corbyn failed to be sufficiently ruthless in
clearing out the quite extraordinarily right wing Blairites that he
had inherited as Labour Party HQ staff. Corbyn lacked the
ruthlessness required in a leader to spot enemies and be rid of them.
But then, his not being a ruthless bastard is why so many people
flocked to support Corbyn in the first place.
"Corbyn’s tactic
of attempting to appease the media on anti-semitism was never going
to work. The right wing press and TV had no genuine interest in
anti-racism, other than as a tool to prevent the possible election of
a European style social democratic government. Neither the media nor
the Blairites were ever going to reconcile to Corbyn.
"We will
never know what would have happened if he had come out and denounced
the witch-hunt as an attempt to stifle supporters of the
Palestinians, and spoken openly of Israel’s move to apartheid. He
had the nerve to take on the establishment narrative when he stated
that British military invasions cause terrorist blowback at home, and
won public support. Whether a firm line on Palestine and calling out
the witch-hunt would have had a better result than giving way before
unfair attacks, we can never know.”
Craig
Murray's full report is here:
,
NOTE: If only we had more Craig Murrays and Marcus Rashfords. I have known Craig ever since I read "Murder in Samarkand". As a fellow whistleblower, but one who sacrificed much less than he did as a UK Ambassador, I have followed the great work he has done to advance honest politics. I recommend following his work at ...
I
recently wrote a blog with quotes from Richard Horton. You can read
it here. As Editor of The Lancet, one of the world’s most
prestigious medical journals, he has now written an Editorial.(The Lancet, 13 June 2020)
“Racism
is a public health emergency of global concern …Those working in
science, medicine, and public health must be representative of the
societies they seek to help. But more than that, we have a duty to
seek equality as a matter of justice and rights. Anti-racism is a
struggle that everybody must join.” read it Here
I
also wrote recently about the corrupting influence of the honours
system in the charity I co-founded. Here.
Dr
Horton is living and working bravely in the spirit of the Lancet’s radical
tradition and I am delighted that his name with the prefix ‘Dr’ is unlikely to ever be replaced with ‘Sir’.
“This
is a decision that I have had to make and there will be others who
may feel different and would enjoy the attraction of being a Member
of the British Empire and those three letters after their name. But I
feel it would be a betrayal to all of the Africans who have lost
their lives and who have suffered as a result of Empire. Ancestors
would be turning in their graves after how Empire and colonialism had
enslaved them.”
Howard
Gayle, Liverpool FC’s first back player turning down an MBE in
2016.
This
is the moment for toppling statues, both real and metaphoric.
As
co-founder of War Child, a charity with strong music connections, I
appeal to all those connected to the charity and other similar NGO's
who have received 'Empire’ awards, to respect Howard Gayle’s
example and follow John Lennon, who nearly 50 years earlier,
returned his MBE “in protest against Britain’s involvement in the
Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam, and
against Cold Turkey slipping down the charts.”
Politics
with sport, music and humour – doesn’t come stronger!
The
Lancet is one of the best-known medical journals in the world. It was
started in the 1820s by Thomas Wakley. He was involved in the
campaign for parliamentary reform, for an extension of the vote and
the abolition of slavery. Elected an MP in 1835, his maiden speech
was in defence of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. When their freedom was
celebrated Wakley was made the guest of honour. One of his last
campaigns as Editor was against adulteration of foodstuffs.
We could
do with him today, but wait a minute today’s Lancet Editor is
Richard Horton. Here are his three most recent tweets.
I
don’t understand the passivity of my fellow countrymen and
countrywomen. Why are you not more angry? Why are you allowing this
government to orchestrate the deaths of your citizens, your families,
your neighbours? This is a mass delusion. Resist. Resist. Rebel.
We
don’t need satire. We don’t need humour. We don’t need mockery.
We need organisation. We need alternatives. We need rebellion.
Against a government that has fostered corruption, collusion, and
criminality. A government that has presided over the avoidable deaths
of thousands.
Over
40,000 mostly preventable deaths in the UK caused by the most
appalling failure of government. Why aren’t people protesting more?
We are living through a humanitarian catastrophe. And yet no
accountability. Britain feels truly broken.
