Thursday 29 March 2018

Without Parallel

The derivation of the word "Easter" from the name of a pagan goddess is peculiar to English and German (which got it from Anglo-Saxon missionaries), and those were hardly the first languages in which the Paschal Mystery was ever celebrated. Likewise, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is entirely without parallel in mere mythology.

The example usually cited is the early Egyptian cult of Isis and Osiris. Osiris is murdered by his brother Seth, who then sinks his coffin in the Nile. Isis, wife of Osiris and most powerful of goddesses, discovers her husband's body and returns it to Egypt. Seth, however, regains the body, cuts it into fourteen pieces, and scatters it abroad. Isis counters by recovering the pieces. How does this resemble the Resurrection Narratives in the slightest? Some much later commentators refer to this as an anastasis, but the fact that they were writing in Greek rather illustrates how far removed they were.

In all the mystery cults, no early texts refer to any resurrection of Attis, nor of Adonis, nor, as we have seen, of Osiris. Indeed, according to Plutarch, it was the pious desire of devotees to be buried in the same ground where the body of Osiris was held still to be lying. Of Mithra, popular among Roman soldiers and often invoked at this point, it is not in dispute that stories of death and resurrection were devised specifically in order to counter the appeal of Christianity.

There is no suggestion that any pagan deity was ever held to have risen from the dead never to die again, nor to have appeared in the flesh several times thereafter (and soon thereafter, at that), nor to have been recounted doing so by eyewitnesses, nor even to have lived and died, never mind risen from the dead, at a specific, and quite recent, point in investigable history.

You might deny or dispute this in investigable historical terms, although good luck, because you'll need it. The historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth can be very hotly denied on the Internet by people who have that particular bee in their bonnets, but it is subject to no scholarly dispute whatever. But the present point is that, uniquely, any such investigable claim is made at all.

It is also contended that Attis is supposed to have come back to life four days after his death. There is one account of Osiris being reanimated two or three days after his death, though only one, not four. And it is even suggested that Adonis may have been "resurrected" three days after his death. In the case of all three, there is no evidence for any such belief earlier than the second century AD. It is quite clear which way the borrowing went.

There is, furthermore, no evidence whatever that the mystery religions had any influence in Palestine in the first century. And there is all the difference that there could possibly be between the mythological experience of these nebulous figures and the Crucifixion "under Pontius Pilate".

Hellenism and the Roman Empire did not view the Christian message as merely another legend of a cultic hero, just as neither the philosophical Greeks nor the pragmatic Romans dismissed it as either harmless or ridiculous. Just look at how they did react to it.

As Rousseau said, men who could invent such a story would be greater and more astonishing than its central figure.

See you on Monday or Tuesday.

Disclosure Watch: Day 26

A year after I was charged, I am due to stand trial on 11th April. The Crown has made no disclosure of the evidence that it intends to present.

On 6th December, it admitted outside court that the only such item had "been destroyed". In fact, it had never existed. The Police, against whom I have no complaint, state openly that they would not have charged me.

At the various stages of this process, the Crown has never been represented by the same barrister twice. Its barristers have always been in their twenties, and in each case they have clearly never seen the file before that day. The Bar regards this brief as professionally toxic.

It is now less than two weeks, including the Easter Weekend, until my trial date, but there has been no disclosure of any evidence against me, meaning that it is now impossible for me to receive a fair trial. There has never been any public interest to justify this prosecution, and there is no longer any pretence of an evidential basis to it, either. Demand that it be discontinued. This is your money. Demand it.

Until there is anything to add to this post, then it will appear here every day that the post is delivered.

Skripals Death Watch: Day Five

More than three weeks later, the Skripals are not dead. Some weapon of mass destruction, that. 

Meanwhile, the British Embassy in Moscow has lost 23 staff, the British Consulate-General in St Petersburg has been closed, the previously thriving British Council has been kicked out of Russia, and there is a significantly increased risk to the safety of the England football team and its fans during the World Cup.

Theresa May and Boris Johnson should resign. They won't. But they should.

Behind The Door

If Russia is the Nazi Germany of the present age, then what about those protests after the fire in Kemerovo? Trying doing that in Saudi Arabia. Also note that Vladimir Putin has travelled quickly to Kemerovo, which is an awful lot further from the Kremlin than Grenfell Tower was from Downing Street. There, he has met survivors, something that Theresa May had refused to do.

Smeared on the front door of the house? Still never killed anyone? The Detective Sergeant who was inexplicably the first responder has gone home? The only other victim is an unnamed Police Officer who is being treated as an outpatient? You believed this rubbish. You propagated this rubbish. You screamed down for treason those of us who pointed out that it obviously was rubbish.

You had done all of those things in relation to the alleged murder of 100,000 military age males in Kosovo, and then again in relation to a link between Afghanistan and the events of 11th September 2011, the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, those weapons' capacity for deployment within 45 minutes, Saddam Hussein's feeding of people into a giant paper shredder, his attempt to obtain uranium from Niger, an imminent genocide in Benghazi, Gaddafi's feeding of Viagra to his soldiers in order to encourage mass rape, his intention to flee to Venezuela, the existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons programme, and Assad's gassing of Ghouta as if that were an undisputed fact.

But none of that has stopped you from doing them all again this time. We were right on every previous occasion, and we are right again now. Over Iraq, in particular, you also called us anti-Semites for years on end, so you are going to have to do an awful lot better than that. But you won't. You can't.

What you can do, and what everyone living in a part of England with local elections this year must do, is to vote for the best-placed candidate who is neither a Conservative nor a Liberal Democrat. Those parties, like the SNP and the DUP, have cheered on the baseless New Cold War, and as much as anything else significantly endangered England's football team and its supporters at the World Cup. This will be sad for hardworking Councillors who will lose their seats. But politics is a rough old trade, and local politics is the roughest of the lot. Don't I know it? They can vent their sorrow within their respective political parties.

Speaking of elections, Putin would have been re-elected anyway, but he still put the belt and braces on it. As did Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The uprising in Tahrir Square was not strictly part of the Islamist "Arab Spring". It had its own very particular roots, in the putting down of the demonstration there as part of the global day of action on 15th February 2003, against what was then the impending invasion of Iraq. As such, its legacy deserves a very special place among our concerns.

Alas, another question of legacy presents itself today. Keir Starmer deserves credit for having eschewed attempted coups against Jeremy Corbyn, and for his past work on the McLibel case. But he was also behind the ridiculous Twitter Joke Trial, he decided not to prosecute Simon Harwood over the death of Ian Tomlinson, he acted for Marina Litvinenko, and he is engaged in watering down Corbyn's commitment to Brexit. His role in the John Worboys affair is the opportunity to replace him with someone more suitable.

But who? Richard Burgon, a staunch Morning Star Eurosceptic, is getting too much done as Shadow Justice Secretary to move him. Step forward, the first MP to nominate Corbyn for Leader of the Labour Party, a man who campaigned for Leave on all the good Old Labour grounds that, based on the map, did in fact carry the day. They have had quite long enough to construct a case against Kelvin Hopkins. They have entirely failed to do so. The position of Shadow Brexit Secretary beckons.

Get Ready, Get Readies

The list of signatories to Laura Pidcock's Nomination Papers was one fifth as long as these things used to be, most of the people on it had never held elected public office, and the one member of the unitary Durham County Council had been elected for the first time a mere matters of days earlier. Gone are the days when all Labour County and what were then District Councillors nominated the parliamentary candidate because they just did, no matter how much they might have despised Hilary Armstrong personally, and when even some Independents also signed up.

There are now two Labour Parties here in North West Durham. One is long-established, and it is fairly leftish. It nominated Ed Miliband in 2010, Andy Burnham in 2015, and Jeremy Corbyn in 2016. It selected and reselected Pat Glass. It is far from Blairite. But it also has a long history of working successfully with this constituency's many Conservative voters (34 per cent last year) and with its many Independent Councillors, as well as with occasional Lib Dems, and with both Lib Dems and Conservatives at Parish level.

The other, however, is the Laura Pidcock Party. A handful of mostly undistinguished local activists, bussed in hordes from far and wide at election time, and a Facebook and Twitter army of her fans from hundreds of miles away. "All" I need is £10,000, and I really will contest North West Durham against Pidcock, with heavyweight local support, Labour until that point, and otherwise. Make it happen. I can be contacted on davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. All that we need are the readies.

Letter To The Crown Prosecution Service

Sent last night, copied to my solicitor and to journalists:

Dear Sir or Madam,

It is now only two weeks, including the Easter Weekend, until my trial date (11th April, at Durham Crown Court), but there has been no disclosure of any evidence against me, meaning that it is now impossible for me to receive a fair trial. There has never been any public interest to justify this prosecution; if there is no public interest in prosecuting the father of Poppi Worthington, then there is certainly none in prosecuting me. There is no longer any pretence of an evidential basis to it, either. Your point was made when I failed to be elected to Durham County Council nearly 11 months ago. Not least because the Crown Prosecution Service is hardly in a position to add unnecessarily to its troubles at the moment, I trust that this outrageous waste of public money will now be discontinued.

Yours faithfully,

David Lindsay

Libel Watch: Day 42

The Leader of Durham County Council, Simon Henig, was so afraid that I was going to be elected to that authority, that he faked a death threat against himself and dozens of other Councillors.

Despite the complete lack of evidence, that matter is still being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service as part of the attempt by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, to secure a Labour seat in one or other House of Parliament.

If I am wrong, then let Henig and Saunders sue me. Until they do, then this post will appear here every day that the post is delivered.

Tommy Robinson Watch: Day 18

Following the imprisonment of Jayda Fransen, @ProudWhitePower tweeted: "If #JaydaFransen is no longer legally eligible to be our parliamentary candidate here at North West Durham against @davidaslindsay, our candidate will be @TRobinsonNewEra. David Lindsay will be defeated. #BritainFirst"

Well, Jayda Fransen is indeed no longer legally eligible to be a parliamentary candidate. And Tommy Robinson, whose Twitter handle that certainly is, has not denied being her replacement as a candidate against me here at North West Durham.

Nor has endorsement of him in that capacity been denied by any of Britain First, the British National Party, the National Front, National Action, the Britannica Party, the British Democratic Party, Ulster Resistance, the Orange Volunteers, the Red Hand Defenders, the Real Ulster Freedom Fighters, the Springbok Club, the London Swinton Circle, the Conservative Monday Club, the League of St George, the London Conference on Intelligence, the Ulster Institute for Social Research, the Mankind Quarterly, Candour, Spearhead, Redwatch, Black House Publishing, Focal Point Publications (which is David Irving’s global nerve centre of Holocaust denial), Steve Bannon, Roy Moore, Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, Heinz-Christian Strache, Emil Kirkegaard, or Toby Young.

If any of those does deny endorsing Tommy Robinson, then he, she or it needs to explain which candidate for this seat enjoyed that support instead. Beating Robinson would be sweet. But beating both him and Toby Young, against whom I intend to make a formal complaint to the Charity Commission, would be sweeter than Tupelo Honey eaten while listening to Tupelo Honey.

This post will appear here every working day until there is anything to add to it.

Wednesday 28 March 2018

Disclosure Watch: Day 25

A year after I was charged, I am due to stand trial on 11th April. The Crown has made no disclosure of the evidence that it intends to present.

On 6th December, it admitted outside court that the only such item had "been destroyed". In fact, it had never existed. The Police, against whom I have no complaint, state openly that they would not have charged me.

At the various stages of this process, the Crown has never been represented by the same barrister twice. Its barristers have always been in their twenties, and in each case they have clearly never seen the file before that day. The Bar regards this brief as professionally toxic.

It is now only two weeks, including the Easter Weekend, until my trial date, but there has been no disclosure of any evidence against me, meaning that it is now impossible for me to receive a fair trial. There has never been any public interest to justify this prosecution, and there is no longer any pretence of an evidential basis to it, either. Demand that it be discontinued. This is your money. Demand it.

Until there is anything to add to this post, then it will appear here every day that the post is delivered.

Laura Who?

No, I am not "standing against" a person who this time last year had never set eyes on this constituency, who had to give a false address on the ballot paper (although she does live here now), about whose candidacy no one in the Constituency Labour Party had ever been asked, and the signatories to whose Nomination Papers were mostly less than prominent in local affairs. The list of those who had actively refused to sign would make for very interesting reading.

Her online fan club comes entirely from outside this constituency, where I have lived since before she was born. Her reputation rests on a speech that can only have impressed people who had never heard a speech before. When I was first introduced, by a person of some distinction, as "the man who should have been our MP," then she was still in school. If she chose to stand against me, then that would be up to her. But that would be what she was doing. And she would lose.

Skripals Death Watch: Day Four

More than three weeks later, the Skripals are not dead. Some weapon of mass destruction, that. 

Meanwhile, the British Embassy in Moscow has lost 23 staff, the British Consulate-General in St Petersburg has been closed, the previously thriving British Council has been kicked out of Russia, and there is a significantly increased risk to the safety of the England football team and its fans during the World Cup.

Theresa May and Boris Johnson should resign. They won't. But they should.

Rallying Points

It is a reasonable question why Wes Streeting or Luciana Berger thought it appropriate to address a Conservative Party local election rally. But it is also a reasonable question why the Conservative Party wanted its local election rally to be addressed by Luciana Berger or Wes Streeting. 

After all, it is economically well to their left, since they remain strongly supportive of the austerity from which it is, however slowly, extricating itself. It is also positively peaceable by comparison with their gung-ho global trigger-happiness. But it is preparing to legislate for gender self-identification, to the horror of those mostly pro-Corbyn Labour members and supporters whom they and their publicly funded staff are subjecting to a torrent of abuse.

And it is turning this country into the EU colony and satrapy that some of us predicted, obliged as a colony to keep laws that we will not have had any say in making, and obliged as a satrapy to pay tribute to the imperium, all without even so much as getting our fisheries back, and all without a peep of dissent from any Conservative member of either House of Parliament.

Jacob Rees-Who? In any case, the Conservatives have only ever had two national Leadership Elections, their MPs simply removed the winner of the first one and installed a replacement of their own devising, and even the second, which delivered David Cameron, was 13 years ago and counting. Rees-Mogg would never so much as make it onto the ballot in the wildly unlikely event of a third decision to ask the members, of all people.

Moreover, since those members adore Theresa May, they would presumably vote for the most pro-EU candidate available. Chosen by Conservative MPs, that candidate would be very, very, very pro-EU, indeed. He or she would be committed to the Government's policy of giving people a "transition period" during which to come round to the view that it would be better to join the EU again.

Doing so would of course be on the EU's terms, with Schengen, the euro, the lot. That is very much the position of most of the 20 Labour MPs who this week turned up to the Conservative Party's local election rally, in support of a party that tellingly arranged for the expulsion of a handful of Russian diplomats from a handful of countries to be announced by the President of the European Council.

Still, the pitiful turnout at that rally, for all the saturation coverage in media that routinely ignored enormous demonstrations even on that same site, indicated just how badly the Conservatives were going to do at the local elections in London. As an absolute maximum, there were 300 people. In which case, one in 15 attendees was a Labour MP, and probably one in eight was there as a paid member of the staff of the Israeli Embassy.

What is a foreign embassy doing, organising the Conservative Party's local election rally? What is the Conservative Party doing, allowing a foreign embassy to organise its local election rally? Why did that embassy and that party invite Labour MPs to address that rally? Why did those MPs do so? And why, having done so, are those MPs permitted to retain membership of the Labour Party?

Libel Watch: Day 41

The Leader of Durham County Council, Simon Henig, was so afraid that I was going to be elected to that authority, that he faked a death threat against himself and dozens of other Councillors.

Despite the complete lack of evidence, that matter is still being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service as part of the attempt by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, to secure a Labour seat in one or other House of Parliament.

If I am wrong, then let Henig and Saunders sue me. Until they do, then this post will appear here every day that the post is delivered.

Tommy Robinson Watch: Day 17

Following the imprisonment of Jayda Fransen yesterday, @ProudWhitePower tweeted: "If #JaydaFransen is no longer legally eligible to be our parliamentary candidate here at North West Durham against @davidaslindsay, our candidate will be @TRobinsonNewEra. David Lindsay will be defeated. #BritainFirst"

Well, Jayda Fransen is indeed no longer legally eligible to be a parliamentary candidate. And Tommy Robinson, whose Twitter handle that certainly is, has not denied being her replacement as a candidate against me here at North West Durham.

Nor has endorsement of him in that capacity been denied by any of Britain First, the British National Party, the National Front, National Action, the Britannica Party, the British Democratic Party, Ulster Resistance, the Orange Volunteers, the Red Hand Defenders, the Real Ulster Freedom Fighters, the Springbok Club, the London Swinton Circle, the Conservative Monday Club, the League of St George, the London Conference on Intelligence, the Ulster Institute for Social Research, the Mankind Quarterly, Candour, Spearhead, Redwatch, Black House Publishing, Focal Point Publications (which is David Irving’s global nerve centre of Holocaust denial), Steve Bannon, Roy Moore, Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, Heinz-Christian Strache, Emil Kirkegaard, or Toby Young.

If any of those does deny endorsing Tommy Robinson, then he, she or it needs to explain which candidate for this seat enjoyed that support instead. Beating Robinson would be sweet. But beating both him and Toby Young, against whom I intend to make a formal complaint to the Charity Commission, would be sweeter than Tupelo Honey eaten while listening to Tupelo Honey.

This post will appear here every working day until there is anything to add to it.

Tuesday 27 March 2018

Skripals Death Watch: Day Three

More than three weeks later, the Skripals are not dead. Some weapon of mass destruction, that. 

Meanwhile, the British Embassy in Moscow has lost 23 staff, the British Consulate-General in St Petersburg has been closed, the previously thriving British Council has been kicked out of Russia, and there is a significantly increased risk to the safety of the England football team and its fans during the World Cup.

Theresa May and Boris Johnson should resign. They won't. But they should.

The Queen: Her Commonwealth Story

This is presumably not an account of how she has signed off on every loosening of the ties.

Either the Queen or her equally revered father also signed off on every nationalisation, every aspect of the Welfare State, every retreat from Empire, every social liberalisation, every constitutional change, every EU treaty, and even every alteration to the doctrine, discipline and liturgy of the Church of England. If they could not have done otherwise, then why bother having a monarchy at all? What is it for?

Is it the job of a monarch, if not to acquire territory and subjects, then at least to hold them? If so, then George VI was by far the worst ever British monarch, and quite possibly the worst monarch that the world has ever seen. And is it the job of a British monarch to maintain a Protestant society and culture in the United Kingdom? If so, then no predecessor has ever begun to approach the abject failure of Elizabeth II, a failure so complete that no successor will ever be able to equal it.

For all her undoubted personal piety, I am utterly baffled by the cult of the present Queen among Evangelical Protestants and among those who cleave to a more-or-less 1950s vision of Anglicanism, Presbyterianism or Methodism. What has either the monarchy or the Queen ever done for them? During the present reign, Britain has become history's most secular country, and the White British have become history's most secular ethnic group, a trend that has been even more marked among those with Protestant backgrounds than it has been among Catholics.

I support the monarchy, because it keeps sweet a lot of people who need to be kept sweet. But I am entirely at a loss as to why it has that effect on them.

Inherently Simple, Albeit Dangerous

Of the 195 countries in the world, a mere 22, 11.28 per cent, have expelled Russian diplomats, and mostly very few in each case. The world most certainly does not "stand united alongside Theresa May". 

Meanwhile, Professor Dave Collum, Professor of Organic Chemistry at Cornell, is tearing apart the armchair chemist armchair warriors: 

"I will say it again: Anybody who tells you this nerve agent must have come from Russia is a liar--a complete and utter liar."

"They are simple compounds. They are inherently simple, albeit dangerous molecules to make. Nothing I know tracks it to Russia. Certainly not claims that it somehow requires unique military technology. It is simple organic chemistry."

School Daze No More

Grammar schools just send the bright and fairly or very middle-class where they would have gone, anyway. Nothing wrong with that, but it is not much of an achievement. Who knew? Everyone always did, of course. That was why most places got rid of them a long time ago.

Why are these studies still being commissioned? Last year's loss of an overall majority by the Conservative Party, which in any case would never have passed grammar schools even with such a majority, was the final nail in the coffin of the whole idea of them. They are simply no longer part of the conversation.

On Commission

Better late than never, Sajid Javid has sent in the Commissioners to take over the running of Northamptonshire County Council. Now for Kensington and Chelsea. And now for Durham.

Yesterday was the nineteenth anniversary of the culmination of the fight, led by the Durham Miners' Association, to secure two billion pounds of compensation for the victims of lung diseases. It was the biggest industrial injuries settlement in British legal history.

By the twentieth anniversary, there needs to be justice for the victims of Grenfell Tower, and there needs to be justice for the 472 Teaching Assistants whose pay Durham County Council has cut by 23 per cent, so that they are now paid less for full-time work with children than Durham County Councillors are allowed for no formal requirement beyond attendance at four meetings per year.

Over, then, to the Durham Miners' Association. After the forthcoming local elections, we might very well see the Leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council on the platform of this year's Durham Miners' Gala. But we trust that we shall not again have to endure the obscene spectacle of Simon Henig.

Demonstrable

I have seen bigger demonstrations against housing developments in Lanchester. I'm not joking. I have.

But remember 26th March 2018 as the day when Labour MPs addressed the Conservative local election candidates, the Conservative MPs including Sajid Javid, the Conservative Peers including Norman Tebbit, the DUP MPs, and the staff of a foreign embassy, who had marched on Parliament to demand that the Leader of the Labour Party be removed. A march that had been endorsed by Tommy Robinson.

Hours later, on Newsnight, up popped Tony Blair. Do they think that we are stupid? Oh, well, I hope that they enjoyed their first ever demonstration, however small it was. When did you last hear of 20 Labour MPs on a demonstration, least of all 20 Blairite Labour MPs? They sometimes whine that Jeremy Corbyn ought not to attend such things because it is not "Prime Ministerial".

But remember this: the number of people who re-elected Corbyn as Leader of the Labour Party was certainly larger than the entire Jewish population of the United Kingdom, and there were probably more British Jews on the barely reported counterdemonstration yesterday than there were on what was supposed to have been the main event.

Return The Story To The Facts

Israel is a much more interesting country than its supporters would often have us believe. In The Times of Israel, Joseph Finlay writes: 

I love stories. They’re wonderful things, helping us to understand the world around us, navigate our way through life and deal with the challenges that it throws up. Stories don’t only exist in the pages of books, we also use them to understand real life.

When there are so many facts competing for our attention we use stories, or narratives, to explain what is really going on. When new facts come along we slot them into our pre-existing narrative, saving us from having to examine them too closely. If the story is good enough, with real drama and plausible heroes and villains, it may well continue long after the facts cease to convince.

One of the most popular, and well covered stories of recent years, is that Labour is an antisemitic party. Like all the best stories it started with small details, of lowly Labour members who had posted stupid and offensive things on Facebook. There was a dark guilt-by association sub-plot — as prominent Labour figures were criticised for having had fleeting encounters with people who had said offensive things. But this weekend has been the denouement of the story — the grand finale that we should have seen coming all long. 

It is no longer just that the leadership of the Labour Party has been soft on antisemitism – Jeremy Corbyn himself is, drumroll, an antisemite! Now the villain of the tale has finally been unmasked the coda is inevitable – Jeremy Corbyn will be forced out, the Blairites will return to great fanfare, and everyone will live happily ever after in a centrist Eden. 

This story is now out of control. It is distorting, rather than helping us understand reality. 

Most real life stories have a least a grain of truth in them and this one is no different. There have been a small number of Labour members that posted antisemitic items online, mostly some form of conspiracy theory, or crude and offensive language describing Israel. The Party has rightly taken action against these people.

But these true aspects, have emboldened the storytellers to make ever more outlandish claims to the point where I now see Jewish friends saying ‘It could happen here’ — with the ‘it’ implying that we are inching towards Nazism in the UK. This is madness. Small incidents do not add up to this kind of metanarrative, However good the story (and scary stories are the most compelling) it has been cast adrift from the real world. We need to take a step back.

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.

So what, say those enraptured by the tale? That counts for nothing — the leader is an antisemite! This too, is nonsense. 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?

There’s more. Jeremy Corbyn is one of the leading anti-racists in parliament – I would go so far to say that he is one of the least racist MPs we have. So naturally Corbyn signed numerous Early Day Motions in Parliament condemning antisemitism, years before he became leader and backed the campaign to stop neo-Nazis from meeting in Golders Green in 2015.

Because all racisms are interlinked it is worth examining Corbyn’s wider anti-racist record. Corbyn was being arrested for protesting against apartheid while the Thatcher government defended white majority rule and branded Nelson Mandela a terrorist. Corbyn was a strong supporter of Labour Black Sections – championing the right of Black and Asian people to organise independently in the Labour party while the Press demonised them as extremists.

He has long been one of the leaders of the campaign to allow the indigenous people of the Chagos Islands to return after they were forcibly evicted by Britain in the 1960s to make way for an American military base. Whenever there has been a protest against racism, the two people you can always guarantee will be there are Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell.

Who do you put your trust in — the people who hate antisemitism because they hate all racism or the people (be they in the Conservative Party or the Press) who praise Jews whilst engaging in Islamophobia and anti-black racism? The right-wing proponents of the Labour antisemitism narrative seek to divide us into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ minorities — they do not have the wellbeing of Jews at heart. 

Let’s return the story to the facts. Antisemitism is always beyond the pale. Labour, now a party of over half a million members, has a small minority of antisemites in its ranks, and it suspends them whenever it discovers them. I expect nothing less from an anti-racist party and an anti-racist Leader. If the Conservatives took the same approach to racism they would have to suspend their own Foreign Secretary, who has described Africans as ‘Picanninies’ and described Barack Obama as ‘The part-Kenyan President [with an] ancestral dislike of the British Empire’.

From the Monday Club, linked to the National Front, to MP Aidan Burley dressing up a Nazi, to Lynton Crosby’s dogwhistle portrayal of Ed Miliband as a nasal North London intellectual, it is the Conservative Party that is deeply tainted by racism and antisemitism.

There are many threats to Jews – and we are right to be vigilant. These threats come primarily from resurgent nationalism, anti-immigrant sentiment and a Brexit narrative that seeks to restore Britain to a mythical age of ethnic purity. The idea that Britain’s leading anti-racist politician is the key problem the Jewish community faces is an absurdity, a distraction, and a massive error. Worst of all, it’s a bad story that we’ve been telling for far too long. Let’s start to tell a better one.

Disclosure Watch: Day 24

A year after I was charged, I am due to stand trial on 11th April. The Crown has made no disclosure of the evidence that it intends to present.

On 6th December, it admitted outside court that the only such item had "been destroyed". In fact, it had never existed. The Police, against whom I have no complaint, state openly that they would not have charged me.

At the various stages of this process, the Crown has never been represented by the same barrister twice. Its barristers have always been in their twenties, and in each case they have clearly never seen the file before that day. The Bar regards this brief as professionally toxic.

It is now less than a month until my trial date, but there has been no disclosure of any evidence against me, meaning that it is now impossible for me to receive a fair trial.

Until there is anything to add to this post, then it will appear here every day that the post is delivered.

Libel Watch: Day 40

The Leader of Durham County Council, Simon Henig, was so afraid that I was going to be elected to that authority, that he faked a death threat against himself and dozens of other Councillors.

Despite the complete lack of evidence, that matter is still being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service as part of the attempt by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, to secure a Labour seat in one or other House of Parliament.

If I am wrong, then let Henig and Saunders sue me. Until they do, then this post will appear here every day that the post is delivered.

Tommy Robinson Watch: Day 16

Following the imprisonment of Jayda Fransen yesterday, @ProudWhitePower tweeted: "If #JaydaFransen is no longer legally eligible to be our parliamentary candidate here at North West Durham against @davidaslindsay, our candidate will be @TRobinsonNewEra. David Lindsay will be defeated. #BritainFirst"

Well, Jayda Fransen is indeed no longer legally eligible to be a parliamentary candidate. And Tommy Robinson, whose Twitter handle that certainly is, has not denied being her replacement as a candidate against me here at North West Durham.

Nor has endorsement of him in that capacity been denied by any of Britain First, the British National Party, the National Front, National Action, the Britannica Party, the British Democratic Party, Ulster Resistance, the Orange Volunteers, the Red Hand Defenders, the Real Ulster Freedom Fighters, the Springbok Club, the London Swinton Circle, the Conservative Monday Club, the League of St George, the London Conference on Intelligence, the Ulster Institute for Social Research, the Mankind Quarterly, Candour, Spearhead, Redwatch, Black House Publishing, Focal Point Publications (which is David Irving’s global nerve centre of Holocaust denial), Steve Bannon, Roy Moore, Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, Heinz-Christian Strache, Emil Kirkegaard, or Toby Young.

If any of those does deny endorsing Tommy Robinson, then he, she or it needs to explain which candidate for this seat enjoyed that support instead. Beating Robinson would be sweet. But beating both him and Toby Young, against whom I intend to make a formal complaint to the Charity Commission, would be sweeter than Tupelo Honey eaten while listening to Tupelo Honey.

This post will appear here every working day until there is anything to add to it.

Monday 26 March 2018

Northern Exposure?

Of course children in the North have been left behind educationally. That did not begin in 2010. Nor was it interrupted during the 13 years before that. Funnily enough, the North is not itching to vote, either for the party that is currently inflicting this on it, or for a reconstitution of the party that did so in the past.

Brexit? Who the hell mentioned Brexit, which the Conservative Party is in any case actively blocking? No one votes based on Brexit. They just don't. On both sides, that is for toothy public schoolboys and people who bizarrely wish that they were.

In The Pockets

Two organisations, of one of which no one had previously heard but both of which turn out to be full of Conservative Party activists and donors, are colluding with a foreign state to interfere in the forthcoming local elections.

That is the story here. That, and their not unrelated attempt to remove the principal anti-war politician in the West as part of the Gadarene rush to war with Russia on absolutely no evidence whatever.

Skripals Death Watch: Day Two

More than three weeks later, the Skripals are not dead. Some weapon of mass destruction, that. 

Meanwhile, the British Embassy in Moscow has lost 23 staff, the British Consulate-General in St Petersburg has been closed, the previously thriving British Council has been kicked out of Russia, and there is a significantly increased risk to the safety of the England football team and its fans during the World Cup.

Theresa May and Boris Johnson should resign. They won't. But they should.

To Cancel Out His Enemies

Written and sent on Friday, before either the Owen Smith or the anti-Semitism, I do not yet know whether this has made it into any of the papers, but here it is:

Dear Sir,

Since becoming the Leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn has succumbed too much to those within his party who will never accept his Leadership. He has overlooked his supporters by appointing his enemies to frontbench and other positions. He has allowed some of them to worm their way back in, despite their having resigned in an attempt to force him from office. He has allowed a free vote on Syria, yet no one remembers a free vote on Iraq. He has whipped an abstention on Trident. He has acted against the social and ethnic cleansing of Labour Haringey, but not to secure justice for the 472 Teaching Assistants in Labour Durham. He is supporting the Government’s indulgence of the ludicrous theory of gender self-identification. He is hinting at support for the Customs Union. And he has gone too far in accepting Theresa May’s and Boris Johnson’s totally unproven attempt to blame the Russian State for the attack in Salisbury.

Jeremy Corbyn is the most culturally significant British politician in living memory, the most agenda-setting Leader of the Opposition ever, and the global leader of the opposition to neoliberal economic policy and to neoconservative foreign policy. The Corbyn Government will lead Britain and the world out of politically chosen austerity, and away from wars of political choice. But only if it is backed up by enough MPs to cancel out his enemies within his own party, since there is going to be either another hung Parliament or a tiny overall majority.

Yours faithfully, 

David Lindsay
(Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, North West Durham)

Undiplomatic, But True

Russian diplomats have today been expelled from Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, all of which has rising problems with anti-Semitism, and from Ukraine, which is governed by the beneficiaries of black-shirted Nazi coup around paraded pictures of Stepan Bandera.

These are not Jeremy Corbyn's allies. Very far from it, in fact. These are Theresa May's. In the Gadarene rush to war, the Israeli Embassy will this afternoon take to the streets of London to demand the removal of the British Leader of the Opposition. So much for national sovereignty there.

Make The New Blue Passport In Britain

Sign here: 

After years of our passports being made in Britain, the government has now decided that the UK’s new blue passport will be made in France. This decision has put hundreds of British jobs at risk, at print company De La Rue. 

This would not happen in France, where they produce their own passports in the interests of national security and it should not happen in the UK. 

De La Rue is the UK’s leading security printer making bank notes as well as passports, sustaining thousands of decent jobs in the UK. The company is more than capable of producing the UK’s post-Brexit blue passports. 

The government can’t try to hide behind EU procurement law. They took this decision and can just as easily reverse it. 

Unite, the GMB and the Daily Mirror are calling on the Prime Minister to reverse this decision and support British business and UK workers. Please add your name now.

The Time Has Come For New Management

Len McCluskey writes: 

This week will be a defining one for British business. On Thursday we will find out if the centuries old engineering giant GKN will be the latest victim of our inadequate shareholder laws.

Unilever’s decision earlier this month to move its headquarters to Rotterdam is a damning indictment on the UK’s toothless takeover laws, which do little to prevent hostile bids and asset-stripping takeovers by predatory competitors and vulture capitalists. 

Our company laws are a dog that won’t bark, and cannot bite. They reflect a short-term, opportunistic approach that is endemic throughout British business, ably assisted by our country’s weak regulatory framework for mergers and acquisitions. These lax takeover laws sit in stark contrast to most of the rest of Europe, and beyond. 

It is little wonder that the consumer goods giant, which has been mulling a move since fending off a hostile bid by a spin off from Kraft – Kraft Heinz – last year has opted for the safer harbour of the Netherlands, where national, social and workforce interests are major deciding factors in any acquisition attempt.

That Kraft Heinz experience, and the one British engineering firm GKN has been going through as it tries to rebuff Melrose’s deeply unwelcome advances some eight years on from Cadbury finally falling to the original Kraft’s overtures, appear to have convinced Unilever bosses to find a safer harbour than the UK can provide

Because shareholders’ interests reign supreme in UK takeovers, regardless of whether it’s in the national interest or the long-term interests of a company, its workers, customers and suppliers. This allows the forces of short-termism, and the interests of speculators looking to turn a quick buck, to destroy jobs and run riot with our great British household name companies. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way. UK firms are as able to use protection mechanisms to preserve control as any others. Companies in Holland, France and across Europe make frequent use of so-called control enhancing mechanisms (CEMs) to lock-in long-term shareholder investment and reduce the risk of unfriendly approaches, and the evidence they work is fewer hostile takeovers and firms controlled by foreign investors. 

CEMs include a range of legal methods, such as shareholder agreements and multiple voting rights written in to an organisation’s articles of association, which aim to recognise and reward the loyalty of long-term shareholders and encourage further investment. In Holland, company law allows for multiple voting rights, just as the UK does, and it’s been widely used by Unilever, along with others including ABM Amro, Heineken, ING and Reed Elsevier.

In fact, some 43 per cent of Dutch firms use CEMs, while only three per cent of UK firms do, even though they have as much right to put them in their articles as any other. They don’t because, more often than not, board members want to cash in when the opportunity arises, while vested interests driven by short-term profit put the preservation of jobs and the retention of key British businesses at risk.

In the 19 weeks in which Kraft pursued Cadbury, one quarter of Cadbury shares had been sold to hedge-funds and other short-term investors – shares held by such short-term investors stood at around five per cent when Kraft made its opening bid, but they’d acquired nearly a third of the company’s stock after just 44 days. Preventing such transactions could reduce much of the current opportunistic behaviour and impact of short-termism. While the coalition government huffed and puffed as another British name fell into overseas hands, it did nothing to protect other companies from the same fate. 

Amid mounting political concern that finance is not serving the real economy and that government response to hostile bids is always too little, John McDonnell told the Resolution Foundation recently that our financial institutions put too much money into short-term, speculative investment, and not enough into real value creation. “It is the reverse of what a healthy economy should be doing,” he said. “Finance should act as servant, not master, for the real wealth creators.” 

Unite agrees. But when we have a Tory government that supports the preservation of turbo capitalism it is little wonder that it sits on its hands rather than blocking Melrose’s hostile bid for GKN. It could do so easily, on the grounds of national defence interests. It could also toughen up toothless takeover laws to promote long-term economic stability and protect jobs ahead of short-term casino-style capitalism. Our fear is that it will do neither. 

Ultimately, Theresa May’s continued inaction means there is a very real danger that more companies like Unilever will flee overseas, while more UK employers fall prey to hostile bids, leaving the workforce, national and social interests to be sacrificed on the altar of short-term asset-strippers. If GKN falls to Melrose to be broken up and sweated for the interests of a very few already extremely wealthy men in the boardroom, the blame will lie firmly at the door of Number 10.

We have a government that has some powers to act now but it will not do so. We need action to change our inadequate takeover laws, but this government will not do so. As long as the Tories stay in power, the City casino stays open for business. The time has come for new management. British companies, workers and communities deserve better.

Both The Minority's Sanctuary And Its Fate

Robert Fisk writes: 

So here comes another Potemkin election for the Egyptian people. Whether the people are supposed to be fooled or the Empress Catherine herself – this time, it’s Field Marshal/President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi in the role – is a good question. 

In a country which has become accustomed to fake elections, fake newspapers and fake parliaments, you have to wonder at the sheer courageous, all-purpose energy of those Egyptians who will turn out to vote.

And I can promise you (let us not be presumptuous or even cynical) that Sisi – of whose face his people once made chocolate cakes and candy bars, so great was their affection for him when he rid them of the meddlesome if elected Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi – will win a vast, overwhelming and totally predictable majority.

And there’s no doubt, too, that among his most faithful supporters will be – in fact, must be – the Christians of Egypt, for the Coptic Orthodox Church and its pope have shown only fealty towards the Great President who won 96.1 per cent of the vote in 2014.

I say “must” because the Christians of Egypt, like the Christians of Iraq and of Syria, have a special place among the Middle East’s regimes. They are a minority, and minorities always need protection. And who can give protection more securely – remember the Copts are just 8 per cent of Egyptians – than the autocrats who rule them?

This is both the minority’s sanctuary and its fate. No matter how much the Christians wish to live in a secular society of dignity and justice, they must rely upon oppressive Muslim rulers to safeguard their dignity and justice. 

Over past decades, Christian-Muslim violence was largely confined to upper (i.e. southern) Egypt where village sheiks were often opposed by equally ignorant Coptic clerics. More recently, in Cairo, the Copts became far more political targets – slaughtered on mass by Isis and their fellow Islamists as part of their campaign to take over the Sinai Peninsula and destroy the Sisi regime. 

So Sisi has been hard at work cultivating the Christians of Egypt. And, praise where it is due, he has broken free of the Muslim lockstep into which one of his predecessors Anwar Sadat placed Egyptians when he proclaimed that he was a Muslim president “for a Muslim people” and feuded with the Copts. Sadat even imprisoned the Coptic pope.  

In contrast with past rulers, Sisi has given at least five permits for new churches in Egypt, angrily bombed Islamists in Libya after they cut the throats of 21 Egyptian Coptic workers on a beach, constructed a church to their memory in their home village and – perhaps most important of all – was the first Egyptian president to attend mass at Christmas. 

The problem is that those Muslim Egyptians who oppose Sisi – not just the Muslim Brotherhood (now, of course, all “terrorists” in official parlance) but any Muslim, even a middle class Muslim, who is now being broken on the wheel of economic “reform” and enduring massive inflation under a president who has arrested or intimidated all serious opponents into abandoning their candidature in the elections – may regard his Christian fellow citizens as an integral part of the Sisi regime. This, unfortunately, is what they have become.  

Thus the Copts will vote loyally this week for a man whose secret police now dominate political life in Egypt and which have now re-institutionalised torture as a routine part of the security apparatus, who arrest and beat political opponents, bloggers, students, veterans of the original 2011 anti-Mubarak protests in Tahrir Square, journalists and free-thinking politicians. Hangings, deaths in police custody and disappearances – those almost natural phenomena of all security states – are now part of Egyptian life. Of an estimated 106,000 prisoners in Egypt, Human Rights Watch believes around 60,000 of them are political.

The destruction of Sisi’s electoral opponents before this week’s vote would have been farcical had it not been so tragic in a country which was once – during the British occupation, for example – so brave and so insistent in demanding national freedom and western-style democracy. The lugubrious list of would-be presidential candidates and their fate might, in a different age, form the backbone of one of those Egyptian television comedies so beloved across the Arab world.  

Ahmed Shafiq, the Moubarakite candidate to challenge Morsi after the 2011 revolution, announced and then withdrew his candidacy for the presidency after “pressure” from the Sisi regime. Mohamed Anwar al-Sadat, the nephew of the Great Man who actually looks like his assassinated presidential uncle, also chose to stand down as a candidate. Just over five years ago, he was supporting the “conservative Muslim” Sisi and told me in an interview then that the “security solution” (crushing Islamists in the Sinai desert) could only be temporary. 

“The people are just saying ‘these are terrorists’ about the Brotherhood and are putting pressure on the government,” he said then. “The media are all in one direction and this does not help. This makes life difficult for people who want to come up with compromise and flexibility. In Egypt, we have to learn to live together.” 

But living together, it seems, must now be in a “deep state” under the all-wise and benevolent Field Marshal. Along with Sadat, human rights lawyer Khaled Ali dropped out of the “race”. As for a former Islamist who was a candidate for the presidency in 2012, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh – who argued that the army should not be held responsible for Sisi’s misrule – was simply arrested after a visit to London. 

Even the army itself is not immune to Sisi’s rule of law. Lieutenant General Sami Anan, the former Chief of Staff, was imprisoned shortly after announcing his intention to stand. One of his aides, Hisham Geneina, the former head of the national auditing agency, has since been arrested. 

The only man to have escaped ignominy after deciding – with only minutes to go – that he would be a candidate, Moussa Mustafa Moussa, is a fervent supporter of none other than Sisi himself. In an extraordinary and almost embarrassing interview last week, he claimed that no-one had been arrested, that Sami Anan had “infringed military laws” and that Khaled Ali may not have had sufficient signatures on his candidature papers. 

“I don’t believe anyone has been threatened – never!” Ali proclaimed. He wants factories reopened, proper salaries for the poor and the educated.  Those who had dropped out of the election were – a constant Sisi obsession, this – “paid by outsiders”. No wonder many opposed to Sisi are simply calling for a boycott of the election.

A boycott will make no difference. Here are my two personal bets on the Egyptian poll, apart from the Christian support for Sisi. First, the result. I have a hunch it will be somewhere between 93.73 per cent and 97.37 per cent for the president. We’ll see. But my second gamble is a shoo-in. Will President Trump call Mr Sisi after his election victory to congratulate him? Of course he will. And he will call him “a great guy” who’s doing “a great job”. You betcha.

The Book of Numbers

Watch out for more Jews on the pro-Corbyn counterdemonstration tonight than on what is supposed to be the main event, and for far more Jews who hold only British nationality. 

Watch out for the staff of a foreign embassy standing in the streets of London and demanding that the Leader of a British political party be removed, if not assassinated. 

Number of Jews in the United Kingdom: 263,346 (2011 Census) or 292,000 (2010 estimate by the Jewish Virtual Library), of whom none of these bodies can legitimately claim to be representative. 

Number of votes for Jeremy Corbyn in the 2016 Labour Leadership Election: 313,209.

This week is the beginning of the end of the Board of Deputies. People are finally going to ask, "And who are you, exactly?" Very few have ever even heard of the Jewish Leadership Council.

There is also the question of the charitable status of the Holocaust Education Trust, the Campaign Against Antisemitism, the Community Security Trust, and so on.

Disclosure Watch: Day 23

A year after I was charged, I am due to stand trial on 11th April. The Crown has made no disclosure of the evidence that it intends to present.

On 6th December, it admitted outside court that the only such item had "been destroyed". In fact, it had never existed. The Police, against whom I have no complaint, state openly that they would not have charged me.

At the various stages of this process, the Crown has never been represented by the same barrister twice. Its barristers have always been in their twenties, and in each case they have clearly never seen the file before that day. The Bar regards this brief as professionally toxic.

It is now less than a month until my trial date, but there has been no disclosure of any evidence against me, meaning that it is now impossible for me to receive a fair trial.

Until there is anything to add to this post, then it will appear here every day that the post is delivered.

Libel Watch: Day 39

The Leader of Durham County Council, Simon Henig, was so afraid that I was going to be elected to that authority, that he faked a death threat against himself and dozens of other Councillors.

Despite the complete lack of evidence, that matter is still being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service as part of the attempt by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, to secure a Labour seat in one or other House of Parliament.

If I am wrong, then let Henig and Saunders sue me. Until they do, then this post will appear here every day that the post is delivered.

Tommy Robinson Watch: Day 15

Following the imprisonment of Jayda Fransen yesterday, @ProudWhitePower tweeted: "If #JaydaFransen is no longer legally eligible to be our parliamentary candidate here at North West Durham against @davidaslindsay, our candidate will be @TRobinsonNewEra. David Lindsay will be defeated. #BritainFirst"

Well, Jayda Fransen is indeed no longer legally eligible to be a parliamentary candidate. And Tommy Robinson, whose Twitter handle that certainly is, has not denied being her replacement as a candidate against me here at North West Durham.

Nor has endorsement of him in that capacity been denied by any of Britain First, the British National Party, the National Front, National Action, the Britannica Party, the British Democratic Party, Ulster Resistance, the Orange Volunteers, the Red Hand Defenders, the Real Ulster Freedom Fighters, the Springbok Club, the London Swinton Circle, the Conservative Monday Club, the League of St George, the London Conference on Intelligence, the Ulster Institute for Social Research, the Mankind Quarterly, Candour, Spearhead, Redwatch, Black House Publishing, Focal Point Publications (which is David Irving’s global nerve centre of Holocaust denial), Steve Bannon, Roy Moore, Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, Heinz-Christian Strache, Emil Kirkegaard, or Toby Young.

If any of those does deny endorsing Tommy Robinson, then he, she or it needs to explain which candidate for this seat enjoyed that support instead. Beating Robinson would be sweet. But beating both him and Toby Young, against whom I intend to make a formal complaint to the Charity Commission, would be sweeter than Tupelo Honey eaten while listening to Tupelo Honey.

This post will appear here every working day until there is anything to add to it.

The Habit of A Lifetime?

What will the Holy Father wear in Dublin, the only European capital city where clericals are not worn in the street for fear of physical violence? As a Jesuit of a certain generation, the collar is quite a change for him, anyway. Never mind the cassock. But will his alternative outfit set a trend? If so, then among whom, and why?

Bored of Deputies

These bodies are representative of whom, exactly? And how, exactly? The number of people who voted for Jeremy Corbyn when he won the Labour Leadership for a second time is larger than the total number of Jews in this country.

The Board of Deputies is not in practice elected by most of them (it is a product of a very different age), and the rest of these things are completely self-appointed. Corbyn should have ignored them. Simply ignored them.

It is the Conservative Party that is dominated by the scions of Nazi-sympathising families. Corbyn's parents were at Cable Street, when the Board of Deputies told Jews to stay indoors. It is not much of an authority.

The bandwagon-jumpers absolutely hate Jews. Will not have them in the house. The Fleet Street types themselves might these days, at a push, if the Jews in question were the discreet sort. But the expensively uneducated womenfolk of Toryland would never stand for that under any circumstance. Dogs, yes. Any number of them. But not Jews. The mere thought would turn their blue rinses puce.

By the middle of the week, that will be the story here.

Sunday 25 March 2018

Skripals Death Watch: Day One

Three weeks later, the Skripals are not dead. Some weapon of mass destruction, that. 

Meanwhile, the British Embassy in Moscow has lost 23 staff, the British Consulate-General in St Petersburg has been closed, the previously thriving British Council has been kicked out of Russia, and there is a significantly increased risk to the safety of the England football team and its fans during the World Cup.

Theresa May and Boris Johnson should resign. They won't. But they should.

The Normal State of Affairs

Outside London, where Labour is going to do very well indeed at the expense of the Conservatives, the Conservative and Labour Parties are both expecting big gains at the forthcoming local elections. On the regional media, at least, they will both be crowing.

But these particular seats were last fought on the same day as the European Elections, the Peak UKIP that now seems like a lifetime ago. What we are about to see is a reversion to the normal state of affairs. That in itself, however, ought to be news.

Language, Truth and Logic

A report on The Westminster Hour has just suggested that since, after Brexit, almost every English-speaker in the EU institutions will be using it as a second language, so people will be far more willing to use it, since they will all be on the same footing. I think that there is something to be said for that.

Fools

What a thing it must be to Nick Cohen or Dan Hodges, and paid to write the same column every week for years. In Cohen's case, for years, and years, and years, and years, and years. Of present note, he called everyone who opposed the Iraq War an anti-Semite. That one is not new.

Anyway, in view of next Sunday's date, the Mail on Sunday should publish Cohen's column from this week under Hodges's byline, and The Observer should publish Hodges's column under Cohen's byline, just to see whether anyone would notice. Or, indeed, care.

When The Little Red Was Much-Read

One of the many fascinating features of this interview with András Forgách is that he reacted to the crushing of the Prague Spring by renouncing his Hungarian parents' Stalinism and becoming a Maoist instead. That was not unusual. I hate to admit it, but, written and presented by David Aaronovitch though it is, this is well worth a listen.

Most people know that Trotskyism was a fashionable way of being very left-wing but anti-Soviet in Britain, but they do not know about the admittedly much smaller Maoist subculture. Many people know that Maoism fulfilled that function on the campuses of West Germany, but not that it had an underground appeal to youth in East Germany, too. If there was one thing of which East Germany, like the Soviet Union, could never have been accused, then it was a Cultural Revolution. There were no Swinging Sixties there. There was Bach, not the Beatles.

And I expect that very few people in Britain, and relatively few in America, will know what an inspiration Maoism was to the most radical black activists in the United States. They saw a revolution in the most populous country on earth, non-white, and setting off anti-colonial struggles all over the world.

Nothing ever came of any of this in the West in the end, of course. It is a fascinating historical curiosity, but it is nothing more than that. Unlike Aaronovitch's Eurocommunism. How about a programme on that? Or how about a programme on the Loony Right? Recent tragic events have seen that emerge from the shadows, essentially unchanged. Yet it is at the very centre of power in this country, just as it was in the 1980s.

Enough Is Enough

If I am wrong that Simon Henig is a Mossad agent, then who else has had me placed under repeated and active threat of death by extreme Zionists (and Hindu nationalists) in the United States? Go through everyone else in my incredible story, and tell me who it could possibly have been. Not because he is Jewish; other people might be, I do not know. But because he alone might conceivably have those sorts of connections.

So, was Henig a threat to Jeremy Corbyn's life on the platform of last year's Durham Miners' Gala? Or was he condoning anti-Semitism by appearing with Corbyn? Or both? In any event, Henig's presence was an insult to, and a betrayal of, the 472 Teaching Assistants whose pay he had cut by 23 per cent, so that they are now paid less for full-time work with children than Durham County Councillors receive for no formal requirement beyond attendance at four meetings per year. A insult and a betrayal by, it pains me to have to say, the Durham Miners' Association.

There are between 250,000 and 300,000 Jews in Britain, out of 66 million people overall. Of the Jews that you know, probably half are non-Zionist, or anti-Zionist, or highly critical of the State of Israel as it exists and functions, or Corbyn-supporting, or some combination of those. The first three of those positions, at least, are also very common in Britain's rapidly growing Haredi population, with which the rest of us rarely do come into contact, but which is certainly there.

Yet the noisiest, essentially self-appointed "community leaders" of a tiny ethnic minority are seeking, certainly to remove the Leader of the Opposition, and possibly to incite his assassination, on behalf of a foreign state. That is the scandal here. Imagine if any other ethnic group whatever were at the centre of something like this. Imagine, for the sake of argument, that the noisiest, essentially self-appointed "community leaders" among the well over a million British Pakistanis were seeking, certainly to remove the Leader of the Opposition, and possibly to incite his assassination, on behalf of Pakistan.

Saturday 24 March 2018

Let My People Go

No matter how bad the Israelites were, or how wicked the Pharaoh was, God never made either of them have a second referendum on the EU. Nor did He ever visit Owen Smith upon them. Can't we just have a plague of locusts instead?

Lawful Aid And Protection

Are American passports manufactured outside the United States? That question answers itself.

Only Britain would do this. Only post-Thatcher, post-Blair Britain. Nowhere else would dream of it.

Lend A Hand

In response to Boris Johnson's remarks about the Second World War, Russia should announce that it was cancelling all visas for the England football team and its associated staff. Johnson would be out of office within an hour. Sergei Lavrov, over to you.

If the EU can have an Ambassador to Moscow, then why not any other body whatever? Ask your local Brownie Pack to name an Ambassador to Moscow, and then self-importantly to recall her while the Ambassadors of every state remained unrecalled.

More seriously, ask your local Trades Council and Chamber of Commerce to pitch in to supporting a Shadow Consul General in St Petersburg until there was an official one again, as there will be once there is a Foreign Secretary again, and once there is a Prime Minister again. Under Boris Johnson and Theresa May, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has none of the diplomatic gravitas of the Brownies.

But then, when did it ever? Some character from the same PG Wodehouse novel that gave the world the Cambridge Five and the men who enabled them to escape has been put onto the dear old BBC to claim that there were no chemical weapons at Porton Down. The Drones Club, indeed. There is something almost admirable about the ability of upper-class twits to take themselves with absolute seriousness. Almost.

Bringing us to Toby Young. It is still only March, yet he has already been sacked twice this year from unadvertised jobs that had been invented for him. If you want to run your private company like that, then that is your funeral. But we are talking about public money here. Public money that has been lavished on a eugenicist, a sexual assailant, a supplier of Class A drugs, and an associate of an advocate of the rape of drugged children.

Serious questions need to be asked of the Secretary of State for Education. Whoever that may be. Is there a Secretary of State for Education? So little impact has the current occupant, if any, made, that there is no reason to suppose that the position still exists. Would that we could say the same about the position of Foreign Secretary.

Wailing Walls

Off went Newsnight about some mural that its graphics department will have doctored very heavily, or made up out of thin air. "Corbyn and anti-Semitism" is the lie that will not die. It is being kept going until it has attained its purpose of inciting the murder of Jeremy Corbyn. That was also Newsnight's intention with its "Corbyn and the Kremlin" montage, for which it ought to be prosecuted accordingly.

All this for the sake of a parliamentary party, alongside and beside Theresa May, that is dominated by the scions of Nazi-sympathising families. Scions who might, at a push, allow the more discreet sort of Jew in the house these days, but whose expensively uneducated wives would never countenance such a thing under any circumstance.

Not only because of Newsnight's editorial policy in favour of his assassination is Corbyn already lucky to be alive. He was joined on the platform of last year's Durham Miners' Gala by an armed Mossad agent, Simon Henig of 22 Rickleton Avenue, Chester-le-Street, County Durham, DH3 4AE. He is shown below.



Henig has arranged for me to be placed under active threat of death at the hands of American-based agents of the present Israeli and Indian Governments, "the heirs of Moshe Sneh, the heirs of Nathuram Godse." Had the signal come through on Henig's smartphone, then Corbyn would be dead. If the Durham Miners' Association takes that same risk this year, then shame on it. Even greater than the shame on it for having entertained Henig last year, an obscene betrayal of the 472 Teaching Assistants whose pay he has cut by 23 per cent.

The only person who has ever thought that I was Jewish was the late Rabbi Lionel Blue. Many years ago, Neil Fleming, then a rising star but now unemployed, eagerly asked me if I had seen "the Leader" on this or that. "No," I replied, "I was at Rabbi Lionel Blue's birthday party. What can you do?" "Yes, David," he replied sourly, "What can you do?" That is not my absolute favourite anecdote, though. That is the one about the time that George Galloway promised live on air to take a peerage if I did. I'll hold him to that.

Anyway, if dear Lionel had still been alive, then he would have been on of my character witnesses against the legitimate Palestinian military target, Simon Henig, a status that the Durham Miners' Association ought to consider before extending its hospitality to him again. But none of my dozens of character witnesses has been allowed, because any one of them would have guaranteed an acquittal. Ho, hum. With no disclosed evidence, literally none, an acquittal is guaranteed, anyway.

After which, we can get on with the fact that as the Member of Parliament for North West Durham, I would seek to work with a Labour, a Conservative, a Liberal Democrat and an Independent representative in each of the County Wards, ideally including someone in each of the former District Wards. Those would communicate the concerns of local people to me, and then work with them and with me in order to address those concerns.

One such would be Neil Fleming, who now needs the work. Filling the Labour place in the Lanchester Ward, which includes Burnhope. You can either see, or there would be no point in trying to explain to you, quite how magnanimous I am being here. It is just as well that I am also determined to ensure that a Gala, and very preferably the Gala, is held in Burnhope to mark the centenary of the one in 1926. You know what you have to do, brothers and sisters. You know what you have to do.

Disclosure Watch: Day 22

A year after I was charged, I am due to stand trial on 11th April. The Crown has made no disclosure of the evidence that it intends to present.

On 6th December, it admitted outside court that the only such item had "been destroyed". In fact, it had never existed. The Police, against whom I have no complaint, state openly that they would not have charged me.

At the various stages of this process, the Crown has never been represented by the same barrister twice. Its barristers have always been in their twenties, and in each case they have clearly never seen the file before that day. The Bar regards this brief as professionally toxic.

It is now less than a month until my trial date, but there has been no disclosure of any evidence against me, meaning that it is now impossible for me to receive a fair trial.

Until there is anything to add to this post, then it will appear here every day that the post is delivered.

Libel Watch: Day 38

The Leader of Durham County Council, Simon Henig, was so afraid that I was going to be elected to that authority, that he faked a death threat against himself and dozens of other Councillors.

Despite the complete lack of evidence, that matter is still being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service as part of the attempt by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, to secure a Labour seat in one or other House of Parliament.

If I am wrong, then let Henig and Saunders sue me. Until they do, then this post will appear here every day that the post is delivered.

Tommy Robinson Watch: Day 14

Following the imprisonment of Jayda Fransen yesterday, @ProudWhitePower tweeted: "If #JaydaFransen is no longer legally eligible to be our parliamentary candidate here at North West Durham against @davidaslindsay, our candidate will be @TRobinsonNewEra. David Lindsay will be defeated. #BritainFirst"

Well, Jayda Fransen is indeed no longer legally eligible to be a parliamentary candidate. And Tommy Robinson, whose Twitter handle that certainly is, has not denied being her replacement as a candidate against me here at North West Durham.

Nor has endorsement of him in that capacity been denied by any of Britain First, the British National Party, the National Front, National Action, the Britannica Party, the British Democratic Party, Ulster Resistance, the Orange Volunteers, the Red Hand Defenders, the Real Ulster Freedom Fighters, the Springbok Club, the London Swinton Circle, the Conservative Monday Club, the League of St George, the London Conference on Intelligence, the Ulster Institute for Social Research, the Mankind Quarterly, Candour, Spearhead, Redwatch, Black House Publishing, Focal Point Publications (which is David Irving’s global nerve centre of Holocaust denial), Steve Bannon, Roy Moore, Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, Heinz-Christian Strache, Emil Kirkegaard, or Toby Young.

If any of those does deny endorsing Tommy Robinson, then he, she or it needs to explain which candidate for this seat enjoyed that support instead. Beating Robinson would be sweet. But beating both him and Toby Young, against whom I intend to make a formal complaint to the Charity Commission, would be sweeter than Tupelo Honey eaten while listening to Tupelo Honey.

This post will appear here every working day until there is anything to add to it.

We Should All Feel Very Afraid

Peter Oborne writes: 

Ten years ago, as the scale of the Iraq war calamity became apparent, I interviewed John Bolton, who had been George W. Bush’s Ambassador to the UN. 

Bolton refused to answer many of my questions, and I can understand why, given the shambles he advocated. Now he is back as President Trump’s National Security Adviser. This is terrifying. Bolton is determined to make war on Iran, and we should all feel very afraid. 

Theresa May should learn from Tony Blair’s calamitous premiership and make clear that, unlike him, she will have nothing to do with American adventurism overseas.

Friday 23 March 2018

Undercover No More?

My friend Dave Smith was on the Today programme, talking about blacklisting in the construction industry. His and Phil Chamberlain's book on that subject is absolutely indispensable.

We now know that Special Branch colluded in this unlawful practice for political reasons, as part of the wider infiltration of everything to the left of the people who really did murder MPs, something that only the Far Right has done in the last 28 years.

These things are still going on. Among much else, there are women out there who have no idea that the fathers of their children were in fact undercover Police Officers or MI5 agents.

We have barely begun to scratch the surface with this one.

Passport To Power

The new passports are not to be made in Gateshead. And the North East now has no consular representation in the principal port of the Baltic, a problem that also afflicts every Trades Council and Chamber of Commerce from the Shetland Islands to the Isle of Sheppey.

Those ought all to be banding together to provide at least some sort of cover. But they are not. And the new passports are not to be made in Gateshead. I miss Davey Hopper every day. While he may be gone, however, you know what you have to do, brothers and sisters. You know what you have to do.

Death and Taxes

Britain could quickly and easily close all of the tax havens under its jurisdiction. It should do so.

And Britain could block the introduction of assisted suicide in Guernsey. It should do so.

Any Crown Dependency or British Overseas Territory is free to become independent.

Totally Unacceptable

Thus did Sajid Javid describe the failures of Kensington and Chelsea Council in relation to Grenfell Tower.

Therefore, thus should we all describe his own failure to send in the Commissioners.

30 Questions That Journalists Should Be Asking About The Skripal Case

For the Ron Paul Institute, Rob Slane writes:

There are a lot of issues around the case of Sergei and Yulia Skripal which, at the time of writing, are very unclear and rather odd. There may well be good and innocent explanations for some or even all of them. Then again there may not. This is why it is crucial for questions to be asked where, as yet, there are either no answers or deeply unsatisfactory ones.

Some people will assume that this is conspiracy theory territory. It is not that, for the simple reason that I have no credible theory — conspiracy or otherwise — to explain all the details of the incident in Salisbury from start to finish, and I am not attempting to forward one. I have no idea who was behind this incident, and I continue to keep an open mind to a good many possible explanations.

However, there are a number of oddities in the official narrative, which do demand answers and clarifications. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist or a defender of the Russian state to see this. You just need a healthy scepticism, “of a type developed by all inquiring minds!”

Below are 30 of the most important questions regarding the case and the British Government’s response, which are currently either wholly unanswered, or which require clarification.

1. Why have there been no updates on the condition of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in the public domain since the first week of the investigation?

2. Are they still alive?

3. If so, what is their current condition and what symptoms are they displaying?

4. In a recent letter to The Times, Stephen Davies, Consultant in Emergency Medicine at Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust, wrote the following:

Sir, Further to your report (“Poison exposure leaves almost 40 needing treatment”, Mar 14) may I clarify that no patients have experienced nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury and there have only ever been three patients with significant poisoning.

His claim that “no patients have experienced nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury” is remarkably odd, as it appears to flatly contradict the official narrative. Was this a slip of the pen, or was it his intention to communicate precisely this — that no patients have been poisoned by a nerve agent in Salisbury?

5. It has been said that the Skripals and Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey were poisoned by “a military grade nerve agent.” According to some claims, the type referred to could be anywhere between five and eight times more toxic than VX nerve agent. Given that just  10mg of VX is reckoned to be the median lethal dose, it seems likely that the particular type mentioned in the Skripal case should have killed them instantly. Is there an explanation as to how or why this did not happen?

6. Although reports suggested the involvement of some sort of nerve agent fairly soon after the incident, it was almost a week before Public Health England issued advice to those who had visited The Mill pub or the Zizzi restaurant in Salisbury on the day that the Skripals fell ill. Why the delay and did this pose a danger to the public?

7. In their advice, Public Health England stated that people who had visited those places, where traces of a military grade nerve agent had apparently been found, should wash their clothes and:

Wipe personal items such as phones, handbags and other electronic items with cleansing or baby wipes and dispose of the wipes in the bin (ordinary domestic waste disposal).

Are baby wipes acknowledged to be an effective and safe method of dealing with objects that may potentially have been contaminated with “military grade nerve agent,” especially of a type 5-8 times more deadly than VX?

8. Initial reports suggested that Detective Sergeant Bailey became ill after coming into contact with the substance after attending the Skripals on the bench they were seated on in The Maltings in Salisbury. Subsequent claims, however, first aired by former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Lord Ian Blair on 9th March, said that he came into contact with the substance at Sergei Skripal’s house in Christie Miller Road. Reports since then have been highly ambiguous about what should be an easily verifiable fact. Which is the correct account?

9. The government have claimed that the poison used was “a military grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia.” The phrase “of a type developed by Russia” says nothing whatsoever about whether the substance used in the Salisbury case was produced or manufactured in Russia. Can the government confirm that its scientists at Porton Down have established that the substance that poisoned the Skripals and DS Bailey was actually produced or manufactured in Russia?

10. The former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has claimed that sources within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) have told him that  scientists at Porton Down would not agree to a statement about the place of origin of the substance, because they were not able to establish this. According to Mr Murray, only under much pressure from the Government did they end up agreeing to the compromise wording, “of a type developed by Russia”, which has subsequently been used in all official statements on the matter. Can the FCO, in plain and unambiguous English, categorically refute Mr Murray’s claims that pressure was put on Porton Down scientists to agree to a form of words and that in the end a much-diluted version was agreed?

11. On the occasion that the FCO did attempt to refute Mr Murray’s claims, the wording they used included a straightforward repetition of the same phrase – “of a type developed by Russia.” Is the FCO willing and able to go beyond this and confirm that the substance was not only “of a type developed by Russia,” but that it was “produced” or “manufactured” in Russia?

12. Why did the British Government issue a 36-hour ultimatum to the Russian Government to come up with an explanation, but then refuse their request to share the evidence that allegedly pointed to their culpability (there could have been no danger of their tampering with it, since Porton Down would have retained their own sample)?

13. How is it possible for a state (or indeed any person or entity) that has been accused of something, to defend themselves against an accusation if they are refused access to evidence that apparently points to their guilt?

14. Is this not a clear case of the reversal of the presumption of innocence and of due process?

15. Furthermore, why did the British Government issue an ultimatum to the Russian Government, in contravention of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) rules governing such matters, to which both Britain and Russia are signatories, and which are clearly set out in Article 9, Paragraph ii of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)?

16. Given that the investigation, which has been described by the man leading it as being “an extremely challenging investigation” and as having “a number of unique and complex issues,” and given that many of the facts of the case are not yet known, such as when, where and how the substance was administered, how is it possible for the British Government to point the finger of blame with such certainty?

17. Furthermore, by doing so, haven’t they both politicised and prejudiced the investigation?

18. Why did the British Government feel the need to come forward with an accusation little more than a week into the investigation, rather than waiting for its completion?

19. On The Andrew Marr Show on 18th March, the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, stated the following:

And I might just say in response to Mr Chizhov’s point about Russian stockpiles of chemical weapons. We actually had evidence within the last ten years that Russia has not only been investigating the delivery of nerve agents for the purposes of assassination, but it has also been creating and stockpiling Novichok.

Where has this intelligence come from and has it been properly verified?

20. If this intelligence was known before 27th September 2017 – the date that the OPCW issued a statement declaring the completion of the destruction of all 39,967 metric tons of chemical weapons possessed by the Russian Federation – why did Britain not inform the OPCW of its own intelligence which apparently contradicts this claim, which they would have had a legal obligation to do?

21. If this intelligence was known after 27th September 2017, why did Britain not inform the OPCW of this “new” information, which it was legally obliged to do, since it allegedly shows that Russia had been lying to the OPCW and had been carrying out a clandestine chemical weapons programme?

22. Also on The Andrew Marr Show, Mr Johnson made the following claim after a question of whether he was “absolutely sure” that the substance used to poison the Skripals was a “Novichok”:

Obviously to the best of our knowledge this is a Russian-made nerve agent that falls within the category Novichok made only by Russia, and just to get back to the point about the international reaction which is so fascinating.

Is the phrase “to the best of our knowledge” an adequate response to Mr Marr’s request of him being “absolutely sure”?

23. Is this a good enough legal basis from which to accuse another state and to impose punitive measures on it, or is more certainty needed before such an accusation can be made?

24. After hedging his words with the phrase, “to the best of our knowledge,” Mr Johnson then went beyond previous Government claims that the substance was “of a type developed in Russia,” saying that it was “Russian-made.” Have the scientists at Porton Down been able to establish that it was indeed “Russian-made,” or was this a case of Mr Johnson straying off-message?

25. He also went beyond the previous claim that the substance was “of a type developed in Russia” by saying that the substance involved in the Skripal case “falls within the category Novichok made only by Russia”? Firstly, is Mr Johnson able to provide evidence that this category of chemical weapons was ever successfully synthesised in Russia, especially in the light of the OPCW’s Scientific Advisory Board stating as recently as 2013, that it has “insufficient information to comment on the existence or properties of ‘Novichoks’”?

26. As Craig Murray has again pointed out, since its 2013 statement, the OPCW has worked (legally) with Iranian scientists who have successfully synthesised these chemical weapons. Was Mr Johnson aware that the category of “Novichok” chemical weapons had been synthesised elsewhere when he stated that this category of chemical weapons is “made only by Russia”?

27. Does the fact that Iranian scientists were able to synthesise this class of chemical weapons suggest that other states have the capabilities to do likewise?

28. Is the British Government aware that the main plant involved in attempts to synthesise Novichoks in the 1970s and 1980s was based not in Russia, but in Nukus in Uzbekistan?

29. Does the fact that the US Department of Defence decontaminated and dismantled the Nukus site,  under an agreement with the Government of Uzbekistan, make it at least theoretically possible that substances or secrets held within that plant could have been carried out of the country and even back to the United States?

30. The connection between Sergei Skripal’s MI6 recruiter, Pablo Miller, who also happens to live in Salisbury, and Christopher Steele, the author of the so-called “Trump Dossier”, has been well established, as has the fact that& Mr Skripal and Mr Miller regularly met together in the City. Is this connection of any interest to the investigation into the incident in Salisbury?