Wednesday 30 September 2020

Stand Back And Stand By

I would of course look ridiculous in Fred Perry, and I may indeed have done so in my time, a time before Facebook and Instagram.

But being named after Sam Perry's son, it might be as good a uniform as any for my followers. If not that, then what, and why?

The Unexamined Life

Oh, luckiest of generations. 

Get yourselves an education instead.

Le Parti, C'est Lui

"I am the Democratic Party," announced Joe Biden. In that case, although he probably does not know it and he certainly has no reason to care, Biden is also the British Labour Party, which is back under the control of pitiful mid-Atlantic wannabes who run it as a branch office of the Democratic National Committee.

So, no more universal single-payer healthcare. No more free undergraduate tuition. No more doubts about any war that Saudi Arabia or Israel might order up. But plenty of mass incarceration. Plenty of capital punishment. Plenty of opposition to anything that might risk creating "a racial jungle".

Yes, capital punishment. If Tony Blair had remained in office until the end of the 2005 Parliament, then that might very well have happened. If he had won in 2010, then it would certainly have done so. His fanboys used to talk about it quite openly. And these days, they are the Labour Party.

In each constituency in 2024, there should be one candidate, of any party or none, who subscribed to this and thisThe complete list of those candidates would appear here, and anywhere else that would publish it. If I could raise enough money to be a viable candidate, then I would contest the seat where the most people had offered to sign my nomination papers. Please give generously.

Fry That Sturgeon

As Oliver Mundell is ordered out of the chamber of the Scottish Parliament for having called Nicola Sturgeon a liar, Scotland's Watergate needs to break. 

Alex Salmond has been waiting for life beyond Covid-19, or at least for the run-up to the Holyrood Elections. 

But there is no life beyond Covid-19, and those Elections are therefore likely to be put back by at least a year. 

He needs to publish his tell-all without further delay.

Four To The Floor

There are people who, mostly because they never meet anyone who disagrees with them, believe their own political position be politically neutral and thus not political at all. They therefore assert that their broadcasting network, which gives airtime to few or no other views, is a public good that should be paid for by a compulsory levy, and for which non-payment should remain a criminal offence and not just a civil debt.

No doubt they consider their position to have been vindicated by the pitiful showing of its only ever attempt to set up a separate party, Change UK, which enjoyed lavish and wholly uncritical coverage both from that broadcasting network and from great lumps of the wider media. After all, nothing says "apolitical" like practically no votes. 

For a quarter of a century, give or take, that tendency has packed every public body, under all three parties, on the premise that its prejudices were not prejudices at all, but the opposite. Boris Johnson, however, won the last General Election, so his court and the wider Vote Leave faction are entitled to enjoy the spoils. If they can get away with making Charles Moore the Chairman of the BBC, then why not? Who should it be instead, and why? The same goes for making Paul Dacre the Chairman of Ofcom. 

And how much does Johnson really want to annoy, and further weaken, the people who hate him? If he wants that as much as he should, then he ought to consider that when an anti-austerity and pro-Brexit option that was opposed root and branch to neoconservative foreign policy was allowed on the ballot paper, then it took 40 per cent of the vote. There is no reason to assume that that position, it itself, has become any less popular than that.

Therefore, in a ratio of 5:4, with the five including the member in the Chair, appointments to any given public body should now be supporters of Johnson, and people like that. Or, as some of us would put it, people like us. If, having relied on the official media, the Government were unclear as to where to find such people, then plenty of us would have no difficulty suggesting the names of potential appointees who would be more than suitable.

Beyond Debate

Well, good luck to any Russian or Chinese intelligence analyst who had to try and make sense of that. But if you think that that was bad, then consider that here in the Old Country we have to live under their tribute acts. It is one thing to have had the bad luck to be born Donald Trump or Joe Biden. It is quite another to have the bad taste to want to become him. Yet we have a Prime Minister who longs to be Trump, and we have a Leader of the Opposition who longs to be Biden.

In each constituency in 2024, there should be one candidate, of any party or none, who subscribed to this and thisThe complete list of those candidates would appear here, and anywhere else that would publish it. If I could raise enough money to be a viable candidate, then I would contest the seat where the most people had offered to sign my nomination papers. Please give generously.

1984 And All That

You can be as pro-lockdown as I am and still want as much parliamentary scrutiny as possible.

There has never been a case of Covid-19 either on Saint Helena or on Ascension Island. Luckily, there are still a few people on hand to keep it that way.

And here in Britain, the likes of Desmond Swayne seem to have decided that the problem is the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984. Have they any idea who was the Prime Minister in 1984?

The Assange Hearing: Day 20

Craig Murray writes:

The day concluded with a foretaste of excitement to come, as Judge Baraitser agreed to grant witness anonymity to the two UC Global whistleblowers who are to give evidence on UC Global’s spying on Assange in the Ecuadorean Embassy. In making application, Summers gave notice that among the topics to be discussed was the instruction from UC Global’s American clients to consider poisoning or kidnapping Assange. The hidden firearm with filed-off serial numbers discovered in the home of UC Global’s chief executive David Morales, and his relationship to the Head of Security at the Las Vegas Sands complex, were also briefly mooted. 

Do please read the whole thing.

Oliver Kamm Candidacy Watch: Day 47

Oliver Kamm, since you are a Starmer supporter, if you were to be the Labour candidate here at North West Durham next time (and they still cannot find one for this highly marginal seat), then I would put up as an Independent again.

You could have the Labour nomination here with one tweet: "In support of @Keir_Starmer, I am the @UKLabour candidate at North West Durham, there being no other. @NWDurhamLabour @CoDurhamLabour @RicHolden @TheNorthernEcho @itvtynetees @BBCLN" 

Get it tweeted. Go on. I dare you. Put up or shut up. A daily update will appear here until you do.

Oliver Kamm Arrest Watch: Day 55

There is more evidence to arrest Oliver Kamm than there was to convict me, and he clams up over on Guido Fawkes when asked whether or not he has been arrested. So, has Oliver Kamm been arrested? If not, why not?

Kamm faked a death threat against himself, and he used a contact at Durham, who ought also to be arrested and who may in fact have been so, to try and pin it on me. That incident is so similar to the one of which I was convicted as to call into question my conviction. A daily update will appear here until further notice.

Oliver Kamm Libel Watch: Day 86

Oliver Kamm, you are a liar, and as such you are unfit to hold your position on The Times.

Sue me.

Your bizarre CapX article, as well as numerous other statements of yours since then, have had nothing to do with the substance of my previous court case, in relation to which I maintain my innocence. So they have not already been tested in court. And they are lies.

You made up the "anti-Semitic death threat" against yourself, in a language that I could not read, and even though you are not Jewish. I was present when the Police literally laughed it out.

Like me, the Police know how you did it; they know who in Durham you used, and so do I. Eventually, you will either do time for this, or it will see you sent to a psychiatric institution, possibly both.

You are a stalker with an acknowledged history of mental illness, and I can see less and less reason why I ought not to move to have you committed. Or sent to prison. By the criteria that were used to convict me, then that would be an open and shut case.

Next time that you try and frame someone, then do not use a language, and even a script, that your target cannot read. The Police tend to laugh out that kind of thing.

Oliver Kamm, you are a liar, and as such you are unfit to hold your position on The Times. Sue me. This post will appear here daily until you do.

Booked Seats

Claudia Webbe remains a Councillor in Islington while also sitting as the MP for Leicester East. The distance from Islington to Leicester is the same as the distance from Chester-le-Street to Galloway, where George Galloway now lives. 

Edinburgh, meanwhile, is on the East Coast Main Line. As is Durham. All in all, it would be more than feasible for George to sit for South Scotland in the Scottish Parliament while also having deprived the Leader of Durham County Council of his seat.

Not A Priti Prospect

What is it with Tony Abbott? Briefly Prime Minister of Australia until his own party threw him out, he has since enthralled first David Cameron and then Boris Johnson, each of whom is electorally a far more successful politician. And now, he appears to be running the Home Office, as I suppose that someone does have to do. 

Harebrained schemes to send asylum seekers to Saint Helena and Ascension Island will obviously come to nothing. But the sort of people to whom they had appealed will then be moved to, well, what, exactly? Make Priti Patel Leader? 

We see today that that would in practice hand the Leadership and the Premiership to Abbott, and to whoever was behind Abbott. It would not, however, result in the transportation of asylum seekers to Saint Helena and Ascension Island. That is simply never going to happen.

Tuesday 29 September 2020

Asylum Centre?

Lifetime Skills Guarantee

Apprentices and trainees should enjoy the same benefits as their peers in further and higher education, and vice versa. 

Higher education should be fully funded all the way to doctoral level, with lifelong access. 

And the training and other standards for the private sector to match should be set by national and municipal public ownership. 

Mail Heir

Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah is dead. He was 91, and he has been succeeded as Emir of Kuwait by his 83-year-old brother, Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

As a major shareholder in the Royal Mail, it is to the Emir of Kuwait that the word "Royal" now refers. It is his image and other symbols that should appear on the stamps and the postboxes.

The Medium Is The Message

Charles Moore is tricky because, inescapably, he does have a conviction for having evaded the licence fee. But Momentum would have no problem finding someone in the same position who had been placed there by sheer poverty. 

If Boris Johnson were also to nominate her (and she probably is her) to some kind of new position in relation to the BBC, and someone else from the Left to some kind of new position in relation to Ofcom alongside Paul Dacre, then the point would be made very effectively. 

In fact, the obvious latter candidate would be Jeremy Corbyn himself. If you think that the metropolitan liberal elite were having kittens now, then just wait for the litters of lion cubs if that were to happen.

#DeterringDemocracy?


Market researchers know a lot about their targets. And political campaigners use that knowledge to discourage people from voting for their opponents.

For example, they discourage black people from voting for Hillary Clinton, by highlighting her demonisation of black male youth.

Reminded of that demonisation, of which they had already been aware, a certain number of black people declined to vote for Clinton. 

Although we can never know for certain, there may or may not have been enough of them to swing a couple of key states for Donald Trump.

What a scoop.

Oh, and of course blah blah blah Cambridge Analytica, the QAnon of liberal sore losers.

Mr Dawkins Goes To Dublin?

Or not.

I am still laughing that the Auditor of The Hist, Bríd O'Donnell, had never heard of Richard Dawkins, and that even after she had read his Wikipedia entry, she still referred to him as "Mr Dawkins".

The Priest-King of Baby Boomer, pub bore atheism is unknown to someone who is presumably in her early twenties. Even in the country where Baby Boomer, pub bore atheism has been the only culturally or politically acceptable opinion for longer than she has been alive.

Or perhaps especially there. "Catholic Ireland", insofar as there ever really was such a place, is now so remote that the young no longer even feel the need to define themselves against it. Ageing or aged battlers against it need to take note.

The Assange Hearing: Day 19

"That is yet another striking example of the fact that this process is divorced from any genuine attempt to find truth or justice," writes Craig Murray.

Do please read the whole thing.

Oliver Kamm Candidacy Watch: Day 46

Oliver Kamm, since you are a Starmer supporter, if you were to be the Labour candidate here at North West Durham next time (and they still cannot find one for this highly marginal seat), then I would put up as an Independent again.

You could have the Labour nomination here with one tweet: "In support of @Keir_Starmer, I am the @UKLabour candidate at North West Durham, there being no other. @NWDurhamLabour @CoDurhamLabour @RicHolden @TheNorthernEcho @itvtynetees @BBCLN" 

Get it tweeted. Go on. I dare you. Put up or shut up. A daily update will appear here until you do.

Oliver Kamm Arrest Watch: Day 54

There is more evidence to arrest Oliver Kamm than there was to convict me, and he clams up over on Guido Fawkes when asked whether or not he has been arrested. So, has Oliver Kamm been arrested? If not, why not?

Kamm faked a death threat against himself, and he used a contact at Durham, who ought also to be arrested and who may in fact have been so, to try and pin it on me. That incident is so similar to the one of which I was convicted as to call into question my conviction. A daily update will appear here until further notice.

Oliver Kamm Libel Watch: Day 85

Oliver Kamm, you are a liar, and as such you are unfit to hold your position on The Times.

Sue me.

Your bizarre CapX article, as well as numerous other statements of yours since then, have had nothing to do with the substance of my previous court case, in relation to which I maintain my innocence. So they have not already been tested in court. And they are lies.

You made up the "anti-Semitic death threat" against yourself, in a language that I could not read, and even though you are not Jewish. I was present when the Police literally laughed it out.

Like me, the Police know how you did it; they know who in Durham you used, and so do I. Eventually, you will either do time for this, or it will see you sent to a psychiatric institution, possibly both.

You are a stalker with an acknowledged history of mental illness, and I can see less and less reason why I ought not to move to have you committed. Or sent to prison. By the criteria that were used to convict me, then that would be an open and shut case.

Next time that you try and frame someone, then do not use a language, and even a script, that your target cannot read. The Police tend to laugh out that kind of thing.

Oliver Kamm, you are a liar, and as such you are unfit to hold your position on The Times. Sue me. This post will appear here daily until you do.

Monday 28 September 2020

What A Pile-On

In well under a quarter of an hour, the Crown Prosecution Service had charged Claudia Webbe, the Labour Party had suspended her, and the BBC had reported both occurrences.

They all hang together, these Starmerrhoids.

No Delusion Here

Founded in 1770, Trinity College, Dublin’s College Historical Society, known as The Hist, is the oldest surviving undergraduate student society in the world.

It has rescinded an invitation to Richard Dawkins to address it. The Auditor, Bríd O’Donnell, explained that she had been “unaware of Richard Dawkins’ opinions on Islam and sexual assault until this evening.”

“The invitation to Richard Dawkins to speak at the society was made by my predecessor and I followed up the invitation with limited knowledge of Mr. Dawkins,” O’Donnell said. 

“I had read his Wikipedia page and researched him briefly. Regretfully I didn’t look further into him before moving forward with the invitation.”

In other words, she had barely heard of him. That is hilarious, and not on her part.

It is possible to have attained considerable distinction at one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the English-speaking world, and to have little or no idea who Richard Dawkins was.

Has the President of the Oxford Union ever heard of Richard Dawkins? Has anyone bothered to check?

Full Solidarity With Claudia Webbe

"Harassment" is the favourite charge of the right-wing Labour machine in its many permutations, including the Crown Prosecution Service.

It means whatever any of the Labour Right's weeping crocodiles might care to suggest that it meant.

Fight them to the end.

The Elephant In The Room

The filling of this vacancy on the Supreme Court is no longer anything to do with Donald Trump, who has done his bit. 

The Republicans in the Senate would never confirm any nominee who had not assured them that she would leave in place Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton, and Obergefell v. Hodges

They got that out of Brett Kavanaugh. And they will get it out of Amy Coney Barrett, who likewise holds that her religious and philosophical beliefs should have no bearing on her rulings.

That novel and un-Catholic view is the root of the problem, and it has no parallel on the other side. It is also political defeatism. It does not say, "When we get in, then we'll do what we want." It says only, "You can't do that." But they can. They do. And they will.

Roe v. WadeDoe v. Bolton, and Obergefell v. Hodges: they will get that triple assurance out of Coney Barrett. Or she will be refused confirmation. By the Republicans.

Far To Go?

It looks increasingly as if Super Thursday will not be on 6th May 2021, but on 5th May 2022. With the present Holyrood mob clinging on until then, Alex Salmond needs to publish his tell-all without further delay. 

And we have an extra year in which to get George Galloway registered to vote in Chester-le-Street, where our people are waiting for him. The Leader of Durham County Council is going to lose his seat to George.

Roger Liddle is an active member both of the House of Lords and of Cumbria County Council, so it would be more than possible to be an active member both of the Scottish Parliament (for South Scotland, in fact) and of Durham County Council.

Uber Mensch?

I was the first person ever to suggest that the trade unions develop an app in competition with Uber, and that is now developing well in the form of CabFair, an example of the key role of the unions in the mutualisation of the gig economy. Ah, those were the days, heady with ideas, some of which even came to anything. But now, what do we have instead? Keir Starmer.

Depending on local circumstances, in each constituency at the next General Election there should be one Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or Independent candidate who subscribed to this and thisThe complete list of those candidates would appear here, and anywhere else that we could get to publish it. If I could raise enough money to be a viable candidate, then I would contest the seat where the most people had offered to sign my nomination papers. Please give generously.

The Assange Hearing: Day 18

"It is hard to believe, but Judge Baraitser on Friday ruled that there will be no closing speeches in the Assange extradition hearing," explains Craig Murray.

Do please read the whole thing.

Diminishing Returns

Donald Trump's tax returns may or may not make any electoral difference. 

But they are embarrassing because, in general, people in the West tend to think, either that making huge losses is not the way to get rich, or at the very least that that is not how the system is supposed to work. 

But it is. And it is. And it does.

Oliver Kamm Candidacy Watch: Day 45

Oliver Kamm, since you are a Starmer supporter, if you were to be the Labour candidate here at North West Durham next time (and they still cannot find one for this highly marginal seat), then I would put up as an Independent again.

You could have the Labour nomination here with one tweet: "In support of @Keir_Starmer, I am the @UKLabour candidate at North West Durham, there being no other. @NWDurhamLabour @CoDurhamLabour @RicHolden @TheNorthernEcho @itvtynetees @BBCLN" 

Get it tweeted. Go on. I dare you. Put up or shut up. A daily update will appear here until you do.

Oliver Kamm Arrest Watch: Day 53

There is more evidence to arrest Oliver Kamm than there was to convict me, and he clams up over on Guido Fawkes when asked whether or not he has been arrested. So, has Oliver Kamm been arrested? If not, why not?

Kamm faked a death threat against himself, and he used a contact at Durham, who ought also to be arrested and who may in fact have been so, to try and pin it on me. That incident is so similar to the one of which I was convicted as to call into question my conviction. A daily update will appear here until further notice.

Oliver Kamm Libel Watch: Day 84

Oliver Kamm, you are a liar, and as such you are unfit to hold your position on The Times.

Sue me.

Your bizarre CapX article, as well as numerous other statements of yours since then, have had nothing to do with the substance of my previous court case, in relation to which I maintain my innocence. So they have not already been tested in court. And they are lies.

You made up the "anti-Semitic death threat" against yourself, in a language that I could not read, and even though you are not Jewish. I was present when the Police literally laughed it out.

Like me, the Police know how you did it; they know who in Durham you used, and so do I. Eventually, you will either do time for this, or it will see you sent to a psychiatric institution, possibly both.

You are a stalker with an acknowledged history of mental illness, and I can see less and less reason why I ought not to move to have you committed. Or sent to prison. By the criteria that were used to convict me, then that would be an open and shut case.

Next time that you try and frame someone, then do not use a language, and even a script, that your target cannot read. The Police tend to laugh out that kind of thing.

Oliver Kamm, you are a liar, and as such you are unfit to hold your position on The Times. Sue me. This post will appear here daily until you do.

Sunday 27 September 2020

Cut This Out And Keep It

We paid for Islamist terrorism on a mind-boggling scale.

"Western government-funded intelligence cutouts trained Syrian opposition leaders, planted stories in media outlets from BBC to Al Jazeera, and ran a cadre of journalists. A trove of leaked documents exposes the propaganda network," sets out Ben Norton in staggering detail.

And this will barely have scratched the surface.

Karabakh To The Future

Allied to our dear NATO brother in Turkey, Azerbaijan is now in a dangerous standoff with Russian-backed Armenia.

And while the Azeris are Turkic, they are also mostly Shia, and there are more of them in Iran than there in Azerbaijan. Moreover, while Azerbaijan is a fairly secular country, you could have said that about Iran before the Revolution. 

Turkey, too, is re-Islamising rapidly and markedly. It has just announced the fact that it has flown into Azerbaijan the head-choppers whom we have been backing in Syria for the last 10 years, and who are now to be let loose in Nagorno-Karabakh.

All in all, when it comes to machinations involving Russia, then pay attention to this. Not to nonsense about the American Presidential Election.

Trust Issues

The National Trust was founded out of the Fabian Society, and its fundamental principle is a long way from tea-and-cake Toryism, never mind the more zealous Rightism of more recent decades.

In my long ago days as a member of the Labour Party, then complaints about the high cost of membership were invariably answered that it was "still cheaper than the National Trust", to which it was broadly assumed that Labour Party members would also belong.

Of course, Labour Party membership was far more expensive than Conservative Party membership. But one would not have wanted the riffraff traipsing all over the antique carpet, would one?

Late Cancellation?

What do people think is the job of the Chairman of the BBC, or of the Chairman of Ofcom? What, exactly, are they expecting Charles Moore or Paul Dacre to do? 

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not opposed to these appointments in principle. But warriors for free speech? The Thatcherite Right was not like that in its pomp. It is only since anyone has started to answer it back that it has decided that it was being "cancelled". 

The key figure in that answering back was Jeremy Corbyn, the most "cancelled" politician of any permitted prominence in anything approaching recent British history. Perhaps one or other of these positions ought to be offered to him?

Even during Corbyn's Leadership of the Labour Party, some of us have never not been "cancelled", and we need no lectures on "cancel culture" from those who have always silenced us but who now bellow that they themselves are being silenced. We may hope for a fairer hearing under Moore or Dacre. But we have no expectation of it.

Depending on local circumstances, in each constituency at the next General Election there should be one Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or Independent candidate who subscribed to this and thisThe complete list of those candidates would appear here, and anywhere else that we could get to publish it. If I could raise enough money to be a viable candidate, then I would contest the seat where the most people had offered to sign my nomination papers. Please give generously.

Memorandum of Understanding

The Chinese do not care who is the Head of State of Barbados. The resurgence of anti-monarchist sentiment in the Caribbean is because of the Windrush scandal. There is a certain amount of context in the preference for rising global powers over a long-collapsed one. But the monarchy had been surviving that for a very long time. The deportation of the Queen's law-abiding subjects from the United Kingdom was something else entirely.

As for the Belt and Road Initiative, of course Barbados and Jamaica are having some of it. The question is not whether or not they like the regime in China. The question is whether or not they like being poor. Take a look at the areas that decided the 2016 referendum for Leave, delivered a hung Parliament in 2017, and delivered the thumping overall majority in 2019. What good is not being on the Belt and Road doing us? 

And for what? Does, for example, the Polish Government like everything about China, or even everything about the Belt and Road Initiative? But it knows where the money is. It knows that if you are not on the bus, then you are under it. It knows that if you are not at the table, then you are on the menu. Much of the Red Wall is already poorer than Poland. At this rate, that gap is going to widen markedly. And the Red Wall is going to be poorer than Jamaica or Barbados.

It is not China that forces, say, Catholic or Islamic countries to adopt abortion in return for aid. It is Britain. And if there could be no dealings with countries that had such policies internally, then there could be no dealings with the United States. Or with Australia. Nor could anywhere else deal with us.

Depending on local circumstances, in each constituency at the next General Election there should be one Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or Independent candidate who subscribed to this and thisThe complete list of those candidates would appear here, and anywhere else that we could get to publish it. If I could raise enough money to be a viable candidate, then I would contest the seat where the most people had offered to sign my nomination papers. Please give generously.

Original Intent?

If Amy Coney Barrett had failed to rule out any change to the abortion law, then Republican Senators would block her confirmation. Not Democrats. Republicans. The ones who voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh only after he had promised Susan Collins that he would uphold Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton, and Obergefell v. Hodges. They gave Collins's speech a standing ovation, and Kavanaugh has been as good as his word.

There are not really all that many "social conservatives" in the United States; as a proportion of the population, then you would still find far more of them in somewhere like Germany, where, among other signs of their influence, abortion remains illegal. Such American "social conservatives" as there are, do not usually live on electoral battlegrounds. Politically, they are just not important.

In any case, Coney Barrett's legal philosophy is that of her mentor, Antonin Scalia. The Constitution must be interpreted as its authors intended, or as it would have been understood by a reasonable person at the time of its ratification. A far newer idea than most people seem to to realise, that is rather redolent of Protestant fundamentalism, and it provides no protection at all from those who hold that they may and must bring the whole of their personal and societal experience to bear on their rulings.

Now, I am not going to get into the debate around People of Praise. But what if a judge who were a member of People of Praise were to apply the theory of the Living Constitution, which has far more of a Catholic feel to it? What if she were to do so in unison with John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh (in spite of the above), Neil Gorsuch on a good day, and perhaps even Sonia Sotomayor on a very good day? The issue need not necessarily be abortion. But it might be.

It is not going to happen, though. At best, the ruling would be that the Constitution did not specify a right to abortion, so the matter should be sent back to the states, few of which would now restrict abortion very much, and none of which would now ban it. Nor does the Constitution specifically ban abortion, or provide for Congress to do so. Therefore, no matter what had come to be known about, for example, fetal sentience, a federal ban on abortion by Act of Congress would still have to be struck down as unconstitutional.

All for the sake of fidelity to whatever could be divined of the intentions of the long-dead authors of a document that it was intentionally almost impossible to amend. And forget the odd flourish of Deist period rhetoric in the Declaration of Independence, which has never been the law. There are no such words in the Constitution, and those men would certainly have identified as atheists if they had been alive today.

Oliver Kamm Candidacy Watch: Day 44

Oliver Kamm, since you are a Starmer supporter, if you were to be the Labour candidate here at North West Durham next time (and they still cannot find one for this highly marginal seat), then I would put up as an Independent again.

You could have the Labour nomination here with one tweet: "In support of @Keir_Starmer, I am the @UKLabour candidate at North West Durham, there being no other. @NWDurhamLabour @CoDurhamLabour @RicHolden @TheNorthernEcho @itvtynetees @BBCLN" 

Get it tweeted. Go on. I dare you. Put up or shut up. A daily update will appear here until you do.

Oliver Kamm Arrest Watch: Day 52

There is more evidence to arrest Oliver Kamm than there was to convict me, and he clams up over on Guido Fawkes when asked whether or not he has been arrested. So, has Oliver Kamm been arrested? If not, why not?

Kamm faked a death threat against himself, and he used a contact at Durham, who ought also to be arrested and who may in fact have been so, to try and pin it on me. That incident is so similar to the one of which I was convicted as to call into question my conviction. A daily update will appear here until further notice.

Oliver Kamm Libel Watch: Day 83

Oliver Kamm, you are a liar, and as such you are unfit to hold your position on The Times.

Sue me.

Your bizarre CapX article, as well as numerous other statements of yours since then, have had nothing to do with the substance of my previous court case, in relation to which I maintain my innocence. So they have not already been tested in court. And they are lies.

You made up the "anti-Semitic death threat" against yourself, in a language that I could not read, and even though you are not Jewish. I was present when the Police literally laughed it out.

Like me, the Police know how you did it; they know who in Durham you used, and so do I. Eventually, you will either do time for this, or it will see you sent to a psychiatric institution, possibly both.

You are a stalker with an acknowledged history of mental illness, and I can see less and less reason why I ought not to move to have you committed. Or sent to prison. By the criteria that were used to convict me, then that would be an open and shut case.

Next time that you try and frame someone, then do not use a language, and even a script, that your target cannot read. The Police tend to laugh out that kind of thing.

Oliver Kamm, you are a liar, and as such you are unfit to hold your position on The Times. Sue me. This post will appear here daily until you do.

Saturday 26 September 2020

Unparalleled Achievement?

If Amy Coney Barrett did anything at all for pro-life, then she would be the first one of them who ever had. That is not really why they are picked. 

Being pro-abortion is not really why Democratic nominees are picked, either. Check the nominees of the two parties against the issues on which anything ever actually changed, and see if you can spot the difference. Then check who funds both parties.

Outside such gilded circles, both sides are conning their respective supporters. The difference is that the pro-abortion side has the advantage of possession. Its position is already the law. And it will remain so. There is absolutely no empirical basis for expecting anything else.

Is This Freedom, Indeed?

The Police have to police whatever is going on. Yes, they are paid. But even so, we really do ask quite a lot of them.

Yet even before some of today's demonstrators in Trafalgar Square had turned violent, a very great many of them had wilfully exposed to infection those who were obliged to be there. 

A mask is not only, or even primarily, to protect you. It is to protect other people in case you are infected but asymptomatic.

They ignored that. And then some of them turned violent. Even at the end of this of all weeks.

Pointing It Out

A poll tonight puts Labour three points ahead, on 42 to the Conservatives' 39. But Keir Starmer was supposed to put Labour 20 points ahead, so by his own measure it is still 17 points behind. And it would take a lot more than this to overturn a majority of 80. Even if that were to happen, though, what then? What, exactly, would a Starmer Government do?

Depending on local circumstances, in each constituency at the next General Election there should be one Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or Independent candidate who subscribed to this and thisThe complete list of those candidates would appear here, and anywhere else that we could get to publish it. If I could raise enough money to be a viable candidate, then I would contest the seat where the most people had offered to sign my nomination papers. Please give generously.

Not Effective, But Defective

Welcome to the world of "effective Opposition". The decriminalisation of torture? Abstention. The prevention of mass evictions in the winter and during a pandemic? Abstention, to decisive effect. The statutory authorisation of Police and MI5 informants to commit crimes up to and including murder? Undoubtedly, another abstention. 

The Universal Basic Income? Outflanked by a party whose present Leader was a Cabinet Minister in the Austerity Coalition, and on course to be outflanked by the hated "TOR-ees" next year. Next year, indeed, the Hated Ones might very well produce an Asian Prime Minister, while an erstwhile Director of Public Prosecutions will still be panning for votes, not in the gutter, but in the sewer. 

The Government now does as all normal people have done for more than 15 years and casually describes Tony Blair's wars as illegal. But Labour cannot even bring itself to do that. And for what? Against what is in general the worst Government in living memory, the Labour Party rarely pulls even, and it has never, ever been ahead. 

Depending on local circumstances, in each constituency at the next General Election there should be one Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or Independent candidate who subscribed to this and thisThe complete list of those candidates would appear here, and anywhere else that we could get to publish it. If I could raise enough money to be a viable candidate, then I would contest the seat where the most people had offered to sign my nomination papers. Please give generously.

Oliver Kamm Candidacy Watch: Day 43

Oliver Kamm, since you are a Starmer supporter, if you were to be the Labour candidate here at North West Durham next time (and they still cannot find one for this highly marginal seat), then I would put up as an Independent again.

You could have the Labour nomination here with one tweet: "In support of @Keir_Starmer, I am the @UKLabour candidate at North West Durham, there being no other. @NWDurhamLabour @CoDurhamLabour @RicHolden @TheNorthernEcho @itvtynetees @BBCLN" 

Get it tweeted. Go on. I dare you. Put up or shut up. A daily update will appear here until you do.

Oliver Kamm Arrest Watch: Day 51

There is more evidence to arrest Oliver Kamm than there was to convict me, and he clams up over on Guido Fawkes when asked whether or not he has been arrested. So, has Oliver Kamm been arrested? If not, why not?

Kamm faked a death threat against himself, and he used a contact at Durham, who ought also to be arrested and who may in fact have been so, to try and pin it on me. That incident is so similar to the one of which I was convicted as to call into question my conviction. A daily update will appear here until further notice.

Oliver Kamm Libel Watch: Day 82

Oliver Kamm, you are a liar, and as such you are unfit to hold your position on The Times.

Sue me.

Your bizarre CapX article, as well as numerous other statements of yours since then, have had nothing to do with the substance of my previous court case, in relation to which I maintain my innocence. So they have not already been tested in court. And they are lies.

You made up the "anti-Semitic death threat" against yourself, in a language that I could not read, and even though you are not Jewish. I was present when the Police literally laughed it out.

Like me, the Police know how you did it; they know who in Durham you used, and so do I. Eventually, you will either do time for this, or it will see you sent to a psychiatric institution, possibly both.

You are a stalker with an acknowledged history of mental illness, and I can see less and less reason why I ought not to move to have you committed. Or sent to prison. By the criteria that were used to convict me, then that would be an open and shut case.

Next time that you try and frame someone, then do not use a language, and even a script, that your target cannot read. The Police tend to laugh out that kind of thing.

Oliver Kamm, you are a liar, and as such you are unfit to hold your position on The Times. Sue me. This post will appear here daily until you do.

Friday 25 September 2020

Underserved And Unheard No More

If Andrew Neil came good on reflecting political and regional diversity, then the launch of GB News would indeed be "the most exciting thing to happen in British television news for more than 20 years".

Eviction Notice

An attempt in the House of Lords to stop evictions from resuming has been defeated by 126 votes to 266. 

There are 177 Labour Peers. Most of them abstained.

Loitering On Colonial Premises After Closing Time

Whatever one's view of the possibility that Barbados might become a republic, the suggestion that it is doing so under Chinese influence is a staggering, and yet wholly unsurprising, example of the view that black people are naturally someone's colonial subjects, with no agency of their own.

Comrade Sak


Wherever Labour puts up Ruth Smeeth for Parliament, then Marc should stand against her.

Political Capital

Has anywhere ever been put on the watch list and not then gone into local lockdown, from which nowhere has ever emerged?

Very soon, London will be going back into lockdown. Therefore, so will the whole country.

Tony Skinner's Lad

Authorised Crime

Crimes committed by Police and MI5 informants are not a new issue. But giving them statutory permission is. And notice that whether such permission should extend to torture and, for pity's sake, murder is now considered a matter for debate. 

But who is going to oppose this? In his time, Keir Starmer has decided that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute MI5 and MI6 over torture and over extraordinary rendition. He also declined to bring charges in relation to the deaths of Ian Tomlinson and Jean Charles de Menezes. At best, then, expect a Labour whip to abstain.

Depending on local circumstances, in each constituency at the next General Election there should be one Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or Independent candidate who subscribed to this and thisThe complete list of those candidates would appear here, and anywhere else that we could get to publish it. If I could raise enough money to be a viable candidate, then I would contest the seat where the most people had offered to sign my nomination papers. Please give generously.

Study This

You never see those very strong Brannigan's Roast Beef and Mustard crisps anymore, do you? There was no coronavirus when we had them. Well, there was no Covid-19, anyway. Notice that it is ripping and roaring its way through the freshers, but the Sixth Formers are supposed to be all but immune to it.

All sorts of questions are about to present themselves, if they are not already doing so. For example, there is the general insistence of the school system on treating four-year-olds and 18-year-olds as if they were the same age, such as ending their school days at the same time.

Or there is the treatment of students as really still resident at their parents' addresses, so that, among other things, they do not pay Council Tax. Yet they are to be prevented from "going home" this Christmas, since that would mix households. But the official line is that they are members of their parents' households. Or is it?

Lock, Stock and Both Barrels

In an unmistakable sign of the return of the Labour Party of old, Lucy Powell proposes to scrap the Triple Lock on pensions. But pensioners spend, so getting money to them during a recession is exactly right. And pensioners also vote, so messing about with their money is impolitic in the extreme. 

As for Labour's being economically to the right of the Conservatives, that has been the case since the Budget of December 1976, with only partial exceptions under Michael Foot and Jeremy Corbyn, both in Opposition, and neither with the support of anything more than a handful of MPs. 

In 2015, Labour "contested" a General Election on a single economic programme with both of the parties to the Austerity Coalition. But by far its best showing at the last four General Elections has been when it was both anti-austerity and pro-Brexit. Only sabotage by its pro-austerity and anti-Brexit staff kept it out of office. 

Alas, though, while even Keir Starmer has given up on reversing Brexit, the party is now well and truly back in the hands of the people who usually run it, economically well to the right of the Conservative Party at any given time. If anyone were ever going to abolish the Triple Lock, then it was always going to be them.

Of course, some of us would replace the entire benefits system, and be in no doubt that the state pension is a benefit, with the Universal Basic Income, set at a rate no lower than anyone was already receiving in benefits. Paid by the Treasury, it would make possible the abolition of the Department for Work and Pensions.

As the second lockdown is inevitable, then so is this. All that Rishi Sunak announced yesterday were further delays to the inevitable. Like people who still thought that the Iraq War had been legal, or at least waged in good faith, recalcitrant opponents of economic equality would still have the Labour Party to vote for. They would be welcome to it.

Not that the Labour Party is entirely without its uses. Depending on local circumstances, in each constituency at the next General Election there should be one Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or Independent candidate who subscribed to this and thisThe complete list of those candidates would appear here, and anywhere else that we could get to publish it. If I could raise enough money to be a viable candidate, then I would contest the seat where the most people had offered to sign my nomination papers. Please give generously.

The Assange Hearing: Day 17

"During the hearing of medical evidence the last three days, the British government has been caught twice directly telling important lies about events in Belmarsh prison, each lie proven by documentary evidence," writes Craig Murray. He also states:

At the end of Thursday’s proceedings, there were two witness statements read very quickly into the record. This was actually very important but passed almost unnoticed. 

John Young of cryptome.org gave evidence that Cryptome had published the unredacted cables on 1 September 2011, crucially the day before Wikileaks published them. Cryptome is US based but they had never been approached by law enforcement about these unredacted cables in any way nor asked to take them down. The cables remained online on Cryptome.

Similarly Chris Butler, Manager for Internet Archive, gave evidence of the unredacted cables and other classified documents being available on the Wayback machine. They had never been asked to take down nor been threatened with prosecution.

Do please read the whole thing.

Oliver Kamm Candidacy Watch: Day 42

Oliver Kamm, since you are a Starmer supporter, if you were to be the Labour candidate here at North West Durham next time (and they still cannot find one for this highly marginal seat), then I would put up as an Independent again.

You could have the Labour nomination here with one tweet: "In support of @Keir_Starmer, I am the @UKLabour candidate at North West Durham, there being no other. @NWDurhamLabour @CoDurhamLabour @RicHolden @TheNorthernEcho @itvtynetees @BBCLN" 

Get it tweeted. Go on. I dare you. Put up or shut up. A daily update will appear here until you do.

Oliver Kamm Arrest Watch: Day 50

There is more evidence to arrest Oliver Kamm than there was to convict me, and he clams up over on Guido Fawkes when asked whether or not he has been arrested. So, has Oliver Kamm been arrested? If not, why not?

Kamm faked a death threat against himself, and he used a contact at Durham, who ought also to be arrested and who may in fact have been so, to try and pin it on me. That incident is so similar to the one of which I was convicted as to call into question my conviction. A daily update will appear here until further notice.

Oliver Kamm Libel Watch: Day 81

Oliver Kamm, you are a liar, and as such you are unfit to hold your position on The Times.

Sue me.

Your bizarre CapX article, as well as numerous other statements of yours since then, have had nothing to do with the substance of my previous court case, in relation to which I maintain my innocence. So they have not already been tested in court. And they are lies.

You made up the "anti-Semitic death threat" against yourself, in a language that I could not read, and even though you are not Jewish. I was present when the Police literally laughed it out.

Like me, the Police know how you did it; they know who in Durham you used, and so do I. Eventually, you will either do time for this, or it will see you sent to a psychiatric institution, possibly both.

You are a stalker with an acknowledged history of mental illness, and I can see less and less reason why I ought not to move to have you committed. Or sent to prison. By the criteria that were used to convict me, then that would be an open and shut case.

Next time that you try and frame someone, then do not use a language, and even a script, that your target cannot read. The Police tend to laugh out that kind of thing.

Oliver Kamm, you are a liar, and as such you are unfit to hold your position on The Times. Sue me. This post will appear here daily until you do.

The Assange Hearing: Day 16

Craig Murray writes: 

The governments who are destroying Julian have through their agencies pushed the huge corporations who now control the major internet traffic gateways, to ensure my pained and grieving account is seen by very few. My screams of pain and horror are deadened by thick padded walls. We are all locked in.

Do please read the whole thing.

Wednesday 23 September 2020

Say Your Peace

There has been no sacking of Ben Wallace. There has been no correction of him in any way.

It is the position of the Government that the wars waged by the last Labour Government were illegal. 

What, then, is the view of Keir Starmer QC?

Vexatious

The Overseas Operations (Service Personnel And Veterans) Bill received its Second Reading in the House of Commons this evening. Around 40 Conservatives abstained.

Liberal Democrat former Cabinet Ministers voted against this Bill, as did Daniel Patrick Moynihan's protégé, John Nicolson. The Labour whip was to abstain, but even Kevan Jones and Dan Jarvis made deeply unhappy speeches about this Bill, and none of the Labour Right's many hardcore militarists broke the whip by voting in favour in it. 

The 18 Labour MPs who voted against it included eight recent members of the Shadow Cabinet and nine members of the 2019 intake, three of whom have had to be sacked as Parliamentary Private Secretaries; both of those facts are telling.

The Government's huge majority means that this Bill will of course reach the Statute Book. But it is not a good Bill. This day will be rued over, and over, and over again.

Feel A Little Fresher Every Day?

Why on earth are universities reopening, when the online teaching could be accessed from anywhere? Well, most people who go to university these days are at least second generation, so they have been hearing about the wonders of university life for as long as they can remember. 

Now the universities need to prepare to feed them three times every day over Christmas, while keeping the lights and the heating on in the bleak midwinter, because there is absolutely no way that the two million and more of them will be going home during the inevitable second lockdown.

Harry Égalité?

In bemoaning the fact that he has never had a vote in the United Kingdom, Prince Harry, or whatever he now calls himself, has broadly come out as a republican. 

I mean that word in the very simple sense that it has in Britain, where it means nothing more or less than someone who wants to abolish the British monarchy.

His naturalisation as an American citizen would of course assist the obvious political ambitions of his wife. But this goes beyond that. And the world has been here before.

Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, came to an unfortunate end, but his son became the first and last Orléanist King of the French, and the Orléanist line persists to this day.

The alternative monarchism of a dynasty of Sussexist Pretenders descended from little Archie might lack the intellectual aspects of the droite libérale. But the family resemblance would be undeniable.

Passive Decaying Matter

Marx was wrong about a lot, but he was spot on about the lumpenproletariat, always on hand to provide muscle for the Far Right. If you can attend a Britain First event, then the definition of "working-class" needs to be pretty elastic to include you. What work, exactly? And you have almost certainly never voted Labour in your life. You have probably not voted very much at all, but you have almost certainly never voted Labour.

The English still insist that their footballers have to come from the horny-handed sons of the toil, so take a look at the national side. Far from there being something called "the white working class", the working class is in fact the most racially integrated section of society. It turns out coffee-coloured people by the score, and indeed by the First XI. But there has always been something below it.

Keir Starmer has lost the liberal bourgeoisie by having performed his 180 degree turn on Brexit, and he has lost the Left by having given up the 10 Pledges. So the lumpenproletariat is all that he has left if he wants any kind of audience, and he is going about rousing that rabble in the usual manner of those who do. Against the worst Government in living memory, we have this as a Leader of the Opposition. Yet there will quite possibly be an Asian Prime Minister this time next year. 

Depending on local circumstances, in each constituency at the next General Election there should be one Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or Independent candidate who subscribed to this and thisThe complete list of those candidates would appear here, and anywhere else that we could get to publish it. If I could raise enough money to be a viable candidate, then I would contest the seat where the most people had offered to sign my nomination papers. Please give generously.

This Means War

On the floor of the House of Commons, the Secretary of State for Defence has just described the last Labour Government's wars as "illegal". 

Clearly, that is now the position of the Government. And with the Blairites back in charge of the Labour Party, then it is very good politics.

Forward To Basics

The second lockdown is now inevitable. Therefore, so is the Universal Basic Income, set at a level no lower than anyone was already receiving in benefits, and paid by the Treasury, so that the Department for Work and Pensions would be abolished. 

Not that the argument here is one of affordability; a sovereign state with its own free floating, fiat currency has as much of that currency as it chooses to issue to itself. Rather, this will give everyone an undeniable stake in society while greatly reversing the 40-year concentration of power in the hands of publicly funded middle-class women over everyone else, but especially over working-class men. For that reason, it will be fought to the last ditch by New New Labour, which in any case does not understand how the money supply works. And that will make our eventual victory even more delicious.

Depending on local circumstances, in each constituency at the next General Election there should be one Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or Independent candidate who subscribed to this and thisThe complete list of those candidates would appear here, and anywhere else that we could get to publish it. If I could raise enough money to be a viable candidate, then I would contest the seat where the most people had offered to sign my nomination papers. Please give generously.

Recognition Act?

On the subject of gender self-identification, a comment on a previous post puts it thus:

No-one had ever heard of this idea before this government came along, it's neoliberalism in excelsis. Liz Truss is one of the most neoliberal members of the Cabinet but she's been worn down by a campaign by Julie Bindel, Beatrix Campbell, Selina Todd, Linda Bellos, Lucy Masoud, Jennifer James, Venice Allan, Suzanne Moore, Janice Turner, Ruth Serwotka, Laura Pidcock, J.K. Rowling, Maya Forstater, Allison Bailey, Paul Embery (he voted for Corbyn all four times), George Galloway and the Morning Star. Socialism is based on material reality and this time it won.

Of course others could be added: Bev Jackson, Kiri Tunks, Julie Burchill, Rod Liddle who is still one of us at heart, the immensely courageous Debbie Hayton, Lachlan Stuart who coordinated the last Labour manifesto, and so on. Simon Fanshawe is a bit Blairier, but even so. The material realist Left has not won a victory like this in a very long time. 

Even those of us who find the Augustinian and Thomist arguments for material realism to be more convincing have to concede that this victory belongs at least primarily to those whose basis is essentially or explicitly Marxian. Clearly, that view corresponded closely enough to the third-wave feminism of the Secretary of State.

I have never much liked the term "socially conservative", and I no longer use it in self-description. The society that I would like to see, and towards which I am actively working, would be radically different the one in which we were currently living. Had it been left to the social conservatives, then gender self-identification would already have happened, because they have never, ever won anything at all.

This Government has introduced no-fault divorce, and hardly anyone has even noticed. This Government has imposed both abortion and same-sex marriage on Northern Ireland. Did, say, Jacob Rees-Mogg threaten to resign from the Cabinet over the imposition of abortion on Northern Ireland against the wishes of the elected local legislature? Did he in fact do so? Well, there you are, then.

I know quite a few people who know Rees-Mogg, and they all speak highly of him. But this is about his political record. In itself, it will not do to be a practising Catholic, as Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi are, and to be a certain sort of contrived eccentric. Yet last year, on no more basis than that, it was put about in all seriousness that a party that had been in government for six years might give its Leadership, and thus the Premiership, to a man who had never been anything other than a backbench MP.

Of course, that did not happen. But enough of a flurry had been created to force Rees-Mogg's appointment to the Cabinet, albeit with no policy-making role, since that kind of thing is reserved for the likes of Liz Truss. With no policy-making role, there he remains. He has not resigned over no-fault divorce. He did not resign when same-sex marriage, and even abortion, were imposed on Northern Ireland. And he would not have resigned over gender self-identification.

Depending on local circumstances, in each constituency at the next General Election there should be one Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or Independent candidate who subscribed to this and thisThe complete list of those candidates would appear here, and anywhere else that we could get to publish it. If I could raise enough money to be a viable candidate, then I would contest the seat where the most people had offered to sign my nomination papers. Please give generously.

The Assange Hearing: Day 15

Craig Murray writes:

The only possible conclusion from yesterday’s testimony is that the performance of the representative of the United States Government was, in and of itself, full and sufficient evidence that there is no possibility that Julian Assange will receive fair consideration and treatment of his mental health issues within the United States system. The US government has just demonstrated that to us, in open court, to perfection.

Do please read the whole thing.

Oliver Kamm Candidacy Watch: Day 40

Oliver Kamm, since you are a Starmer supporter, if you were to be the Labour candidate here at North West Durham next time (and they still cannot find one for this highly marginal seat), then I would put up as an Independent again.

You could have the Labour nomination here with one tweet: "In support of @Keir_Starmer, I am the @UKLabour candidate at North West Durham, there being no other. @NWDurhamLabour @CoDurhamLabour @RicHolden @TheNorthernEcho @itvtynetees @BBCLN" 

Get it tweeted. Go on. I dare you. Put up or shut up. A daily update will appear here until you do.

Oliver Kamm Arrest Watch: Day 48

There is more evidence to arrest Oliver Kamm than there was to convict me, and he clams up over on Guido Fawkes when asked whether or not he has been arrested. So, has Oliver Kamm been arrested? If not, why not?

Kamm faked a death threat against himself, and he used a contact at Durham, who ought also to be arrested and who may in fact have been so, to try and pin it on me. That incident is so similar to the one of which I was convicted as to call into question my conviction. A daily update will appear here until further notice.

Oliver Kamm Libel Watch: Day 79

Oliver Kamm, you are a liar, and as such you are unfit to hold your position on The Times.

Sue me.

Your bizarre CapX article, as well as numerous other statements of yours since then, have had nothing to do with the substance of my previous court case, in relation to which I maintain my innocence. So they have not already been tested in court. And they are lies.

You made up the "anti-Semitic death threat" against yourself, in a language that I could not read, and even though you are not Jewish. I was present when the Police literally laughed it out.

Like me, the Police know how you did it; they know who in Durham you used, and so do I. Eventually, you will either do time for this, or it will see you sent to a psychiatric institution, possibly both.

You are a stalker with an acknowledged history of mental illness, and I can see less and less reason why I ought not to move to have you committed. Or sent to prison. By the criteria that were used to convict me, then that would be an open and shut case.

Next time that you try and frame someone, then do not use a language, and even a script, that your target cannot read. The Police tend to laugh out that kind of thing.

Oliver Kamm, you are a liar, and as such you are unfit to hold your position on The Times. Sue me. This post will appear here daily until you do.

Tuesday 22 September 2020

Neither Republican Nor Democratic

The Republicans used to win both the popular vote and the House of Representatives, each of which they now consider a write-off, while the Democrats used to win both the Electoral College and the Senate, which it is now within the party's mainstream to want to abolish.

Likewise, both parties used to understand that the point of acquiring political power was to exercise it, such as by nominating and confirming to the Supreme Court. But then, neither party used to look to the courts as the primary means of attaining its objectives. Both of them used to be more concerned with winning elections.

And time was when neither party regarded impeachment as run-of-the-mill. The treatment of such a device in those terms is the stuff of student unions, not of grown-up politics, republican and democratic.

"Oh, I Say You've Been Misled, You've Been Had, You've Been Took"

The BBC is valiantly insisting that Keir Starmer had to be heard "without the applause". As if an audience would have whooped and hollered at this morning's stirring oratory. 

But Starmer has successfully played those who had thought that he was a Re-joiner, which he probably never really was.

And he has successfully played who had believed his 10 Pledges, which even he himself could probably never have recited. 

He formally abandoned the first part last week, and he formally abandoned the second part this morning.

Reach For The Stars

60 years ago today, on 22nd September 1960, President Eisenhower delivered a speech to the United Nations General Assembly.

In it, he proposed that the principles of the Antarctic Treaty be extended to Outer Space.

Space is being both privatised and militarised, so there has never been a more important time to return to that American, Republican vision.

Question More

Br'er Kamm is having one of his hissy fits about RT and Sputnik, this time because of their coverage of "Covid sceptics", people with whose position I strongly disagree. As ever, "You'd never even get an interview" if you had such an outlet on your CV.

An interview with whom? The Daily Telegraph? That has become the in-house journal of "Covid sceptics". There are plenty of them elsewhere, too. Their influence was so great that the lockdown was imposed too late and then lifted too early, with today's consequences and with many more to come.

Perhaps Kamm means The Times, to which one might add that he, who is in no sense a professional journalist, was appointed without any application process whatever? But is he even still there? His main outlet would now appear to be CapX, which must pay little or nothing. He does not need the money, but that is beside the point.

CapX certainly has a tiny readership, but then nor would any national newspaper, never mind something like Prospect, have anything like the audience of RT, which, moreover, is relatively and increasingly popular in the Red Wall areas where General Elections are decided. Our people are allowed on it, you see. And neither to be laughed at, nor to be talked over.

All in all, Kamm means that with RT or Sputnik on your CV, then "You'd never even get an interview" for the opportunity to be paid little or nothing in return for writing for almost nobody. But in any case, you very well might. Indeed, RT's and Sputnik's coverage of "Covid sceptics" might very well be used to identify candidates for recruitment to several of the grander old titles.

Panoramic Vision

Following last night's Panorama, let North West Durham Constituency Labour Party consider who it would really want as its parliamentary candidate. Not that the party nationally would bother to ask.

And following last night's Panorama, we should reassert democratic political control over the Bank of England, including that the approval of the House of Commons be required for changes to interest rates. 

We should assert democratic political control over the City of London, with a Glass-Steagall division between investment banking and retail banking, with the Freedom of Information Act extended to the City, and with its municipal franchise conformed to that of local government in general. 

All tax havens under British jurisdiction should be closed, non-domiciled tax status should be abolished, the Big Four accounting firms should be broken up, auditors should be banned by Statute from selling extras, and they should have unlimited liability. Limited Partnerships and Limited Liability Partnerships should be required to have at least one member who was a natural person resident in the United Kingdom. 

The State should buy a stake in every FTSE 500 company, large enough to secure Board-level representation, for the exercise of which both the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be accountable to the House of Commons. After any investment in public services, the dividends would be distributed equally to everyone, through the same infrastructure that paid the Universal Basic Income. 

Public bodies and public contractors should be required to buy British wherever possible, and to buy local wherever possible. Employment rights should begin with employment, and apply regardless of the number of hours worked. There should be a four-day working week by 2100. Our people should be members of the trade unions appropriate to their jobs where applicable, or otherwise of Unite Community. Every part of this country should be on the Belt and Road, and we should encourage the building of one or more Bering Strait crossings. And the principles of the Antarctic Treaty should be extended to Outer Space.

Depending on local circumstances, in each constituency at the next General Election there should be one Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or Independent candidate who subscribed to this and thisThe complete list of those candidates would appear here, and anywhere else that we could get to publish it. If I could raise enough money to be a viable candidate, then I would contest the seat where the most people had offered to sign my nomination papers. Please give generously.

The Battle, Not The War

Gender self-identification will be back, and we need to have our arguments permanently to hand. 

If a scientific fact as basic and as obvious as biological sex can be denied, then so can any other scientific fact, to the ruin of human progress.

It is contrary both to whole history of human experience, and to the plain facts of biological science, to suggest either that sexual orientation is fixed, or that “gender” is “fluid”. 

“Sex is a biological fact, and is immutable. There are two sexes, male and female. Men and boys are male. Women and girls are female. It is impossible to change sex. These were until very recently understood as basic facts of life by almost everyone.”

No one is “born in the wrong body”. Women-only spaces must be defended, including in sport. And the “gender reassignment” of children and adolescents must be resisted.

Depending on local circumstances, in each constituency at the next General Election there should be one Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or Independent candidate who subscribed to this and thisThe complete list of those candidates would appear here, and anywhere else that we could get to publish it. 

If I could raise enough money to be a viable candidate, then I would contest the seat where the most people had offered to sign my nomination papers. Please give generously.

Laura Pidcock Stood Against Me

I did not "stand against Laura Pidcock". Laura Pidcock stood against me. I have been politically active in North West Durham since she was a small child, she never set eyes on the place until after she had been imposed as the Labour candidate here in 2017, and the fact that I would eventually make a bid for this seat had been common knowledge in political circles here for a quarter of a century.

Even if all of my supporters had voted Labour, which some of them would never have done, then Richard Holden would still have won. But it is worth mentioning that whereas my proposer had been Deputy Leader of Durham County Council, no one who signed her nomination papers had ever been elected above Parish level, if at all.

We got her in 2017 because Ronnie Campbell had refused to retire and see her hand Blyth Valley to the Conservatives, but since the Conservatives won Blyth Valley in 2019, then she would still have been out of Parliament by now. Here at North West Durham, the right-wing Labour machine is determined to have the candidate that it would have produced this year if the 2015 Parliament had run its course.

It is also engaged in obsessive, never-ending lawfare to stop me, with a full Parliament's notice, from taking 1500 votes and keeping this seat blue. But I have 650 options. If I could raise enough money to be a viable candidate, then I would contest the seat where the most people had offered to sign my nomination papers. Please give generously.

In the meantime, there are 34 MPs in the Socialist Campaign Group, and 17 of them, half of the total, were first elected on the night that Laura Pidcock lost her seat. If there are future and even rising leaders of the Left in the Labour Party, then that is where to look for them.