Wisdom and Hope

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea is arguably the worst dictator in Africa today.

The Holy Father delivered this, with the English translation here, not merely in his presence, but directly to him.

Donald who?

Smoke Alarm

That 17-year-old had no idea what Hebrew script or a menorah was. He just fancied setting fire to an empty building in the middle of the night for a laugh. Was he on drugs? Heaven forfend. And how common is this? Many people might be very surprised, since most of these incidents never made the news, as in itself would be a story.

But the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the big winner from Donald Trump's intervention in an Iran where that Corps had previously faced significant rival powerbases, does not go around paying teenagers to throw bottles of accelerant through windows with no one behind them. Even if it did, though, then why would it have any wish to do so in Britain, since this was "not our war"?

If it is firestarters that you want, then be at the Old Bailey from Monday 27 April, when the trial of Roman Lavrynovych, Petro Pochynok and Stanislav Carpiuc is due to start. Lavrynovych faces three charges of arson with intent to endanger life, while Pochynok and Carpiuc each face one count of conspiracy to commit the same.

The alleged targets were Keir Starmer's rented out house, his old flat from way back, and his old car that he had sold to a neighbour. Who would know that much about someone else? Certainly not a casual acquaintance. So this trial will either be the story of the year, or the story of the year will be the fact that it was not.

Stand Clear

It is not worth considering how much it would cost to automate the 163-year-old London Underground, and there would still have to be staff on board for safety purposes. If the existing staff were overpaid, then exactly how little ought they to be paid instead? And why, exactly?

Scarlet Standard

Like Joe Docherty, Matthew Doyle was introduced to the House of Lords by Hilary Armstrong. Down the corridor back in the day, Armstrong’s Whips’ Office contained Ivor Caplin and Caplin’s close friend, Dan Norris, whose proxy vote is still always cast by a Labour Whip even though he supposedly does not have the Labour whip.

Meanwhile, on Armstrong’s staff as an MP was Caplin’s close friend, closest ally, sometime lover, and now constituency successor, Peter Kyle. Among others, including Anna Turley. It has never been the done thing in such circles either to display or to sing The Red Flag. Think on.

Unite The Kingdom

It will be impossible to predict the outcome of a First Past the Post General Election featuring a minimum of five major parties in England, six in Scotland, six in Wales, and six in Northern Ireland. Anyone whose prediction came true would just have got lucky. But there is one thing that we can say. No other party could now enter into any coalition or other arrangement with a party that was led by Keir Starmer.

As to those parties themselves, the implementation throughout a United Ireland of the National Health Service and of other achievements would be an act of solidarity, although a United Ireland without those provisions would be unconscionable. But the withdrawal of Scotland or Wales because of the voting habits of the majority of such people in England as voted at all, if that, would be the antithesis of solidarity, not least in its weakening of trade union negotiating power beyond even that which had already been inflicted by devolution.

What’s The Story?

The Labour benches were empty by five o’clock, in time for Balamory. But when, exactly, were two MPs last thrown out of the same debate for having called the Prime Minister a liar? Gary Gibbon told viewers of the State’s Channel 4 that Lee Anderson and Zarah Sultana had staged “grandstanding stunts”, so a nerve had been touched.

“Peter Mandelson’s vetting” calls to mind all manner of hideous procedures. But the word has gone out to make the story “Russia and China” (what, no Iran?), rather than Jeffrey Epstein. In quieter times, just as two of the biggest stories would have been the conviction of Paul Quinn and the quashed conviction of Benjamin Field, so a third should, but would not, have been the sentence of a mere eight months, and even then suspended for two years, imposed on Conor McGrath.

McGrath’s colleague as a Labour councillor in Stevenage was Mason Humberstone, who contested internal Labour Party elections on Morgan McSweeney’s Labour Together slate until last year, during which he was one of at least six sitting Labour councillors to defect to Reform UK. Reform expects to take the Stevenage parliamentary seat from Labour, so will Councillor Humberstone be attending the Unite the Kingdom rally with Stephen Yaxley-Lennon and Sharon Osbourne?

The anti-immigration immigrant Valentina Gomez will not be allowed to do so, and nor should anyone who intended to come to this country to call on Donald Trump to invade it and effect regime change. Instead, their spots should be given to María Corina Machado and Reza Pahlavi, who could set the marchers straight in no uncertain terms.

Due Process

Keir Starmer has never sued anyone for saying, as numerous people have said outside parliamentary privilege, that he had been responsible for the failure to prosecute Jimmy Savile. We all know why not. If Starmer did not sue anyone for saying, as numerous people are saying outside parliamentary privilege, that he lied to Parliament over the appointment of Peter Mandelson, then we would all know why not. All this, and the trial of Roman Lavrynovych, Petro Pochynok and Stanislav Carpiuc is scheduled to start at the Old Bailey on 27 April.

Remaining with Ukraine, just as the Wagner Group would have had no interest in paying two-bit South London drug dealers to set fire to an East London warehouse if our Government had not been sending the Starlink satellite equipment that it contained to Svoboda, Pravy Sektor, the National Corps, C14, the Azov Brigade, the Aidar Battalion, the Donbas Battalion, the Dnipro-1 Battalion, the Dnipro-2 Battalion, the Kraken Regiment, and all the rest of them, so, if this is happening at all, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps would have no interest in paying North London teenagers to set fire to empty and decommissioned ambulances unless Britain had been from the start a full participant in the war on Iran. That and similar attacks would not be an excuse to "enter" this war. They would be yet another reason to exit it. So keep an eye on this, since even harsher anti-protest and related laws again are coming down the line, in time for the everyday food shortages that this war will very soon be causing. As the latest pretext for such repression, the war is too useful to be allowed to end.