Oliver Kamm Libel Watch: Day 25

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.

Turning The Benches Red

I am delighted for several people on today's list of new peers: Katy Clark, Brinley Davies, Frank Field, Kate Hoey, Gisela Stuart, Professor Prem Sikka, Tony Woodley. 

And Claire Fox, who is perhaps the first member of the House of Lords to have been a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party. 

Boris Johnson should announce the peerages of the great and the good of the Independent Left, figures such as Tariq Ali and John Pilger, on a "take it or leave it" basis. 

I reckon that they would take it. They are not going to be given a platform by Keir Starmer, are they?

Rise And Shine?

You missed Easter? Pull the other one. Sitting in the house doing nothing was exactly how you would have spent that four-day weekend in any other year. It is normally what you like about Easter.

At least half of you would have to look up what it was really about. And if you go so far as to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, then you are vastly more likely to be an attendee at a Black Lives Matter march than to be a self-appointed protector of the statues of people of whom you had never previously heard.

"Blah blah blah values blah blah blah community blah blah blah stability over change blah blah blah." Meaning what, exactly? If that side of the supposedly raging culture war were to win, then what would be the result? What, exactly, would happen? 

In the wildly unlikely event that you did still hold the views that even the great majority of this country's tiny minority of practising Catholics no longer did, then how would you be expressing those views by voting for Boris Johnson, or by supporting Donald Trump?

Those views are, and will always be, the position of the Magisterium. That is the sweetest of consolations to some of us. But they have never been the position of, most obviously, the Church of England. And to hear them preached, or to worship surrounded by people who held them, then, again, you would be far better off in the Black Church. Or a mosque. You would certainly never come across their being taught in any of the Catholic Church's precious schools.

Despite the fashion for calling it "emerging" and what have you, some of us have already spent well over 20 years trying to promote the understanding that to uphold family and community values, then it was necessary to secure economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty.

That social solidarity was an expression of personal responsibility, personal responsibility was protected by social solidarity, international solidarity was an expression of national sovereignty, and national sovereignty was protected by international solidarity. That equality and diversity ought to be defined as economic equality and class diversity, regional equality and regional diversity, the equal sovereignty of diverse states, and equal respect for diverse opinions within a framework of free speech and other civil liberties.

That One Nation politics required an equal emphasis on the One and on the Nation, reorganising the British economy under State direction, and developing a fully independent British foreign policy, with no use of military force except in self-defence. And that the leading role in all of this belonged to the people and places whose votes have gone on to decide the outcomes of the 2016 referendum, of the 2017 General Election, and of the 2019 General Election.

The value that decided that referendum and those Elections was the value of labour along the Red Wall. Those who cast the decisive votes for Brexit then voted for Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell. They would have done so again if Corbyn and McDonnell had retained in 2019 their 2017 commitment to withdrawal from the Single Market and the Customs Union that had played such an important part in reducing them from wealth to poverty during the unbroken period that had begun with the Budget of December 1976.

Accordingly, and not because of Covid-19, the Government has adopted Modern Monetary Theory for the purpose of heavy reindustrialisation under close central government direction. The Centre is the think tank for this new era. It already has plenty going on.

We are not "socially conservative". We want society to change very radically indeed. And we have never not been "cancelled", by exactly the people who now complain about a "cancel culture" of which they can produce nothing more than the most frivolous evidence, usually injuries to their own monumental vanity.

I am forever being asked whether, or when, I intended to read this or that new book from the latest official voice of Postliberalism. But if you can get published at all, if you can get work of any kind, if you have never had an election rigged against you, or if you have not been wrongfully convicted after a three-year campaign that might realistically have cost a million pounds, then you are a dilettante.

And do the Rolling Stones pay to go and see Rolling Stones tribute acts? I accept that people might have arrived independently as the same conclusions as my own. I myself arrived at them independently. But they have not arrived independently at my exact words as published on the Internet.

On one notable occasion, someone who was then a paid adviser to the Prime Minister reproduced an entire paragraph of mine, without the slightest attribution, in what was no doubt a well-compensated contribution to a swanky magazine that had banned me from its website for having expressed essentially the same views, only with specific policies attached.

So no, I have not read your friend's book. Or yours. Nor will I be doing so. I know what it is going to say. "Blah blah blah values blah blah blah community blah blah blah stability over change blah blah blah." But in fact we need very radical change indeed.

In 18 months' time, and I am being generous, no one will remember your name. If you were any good, then no one would publish or employ you, and the Crown Prosecution Service, the rest of the right-wing Labour machine, the Liberal Establishment in academia and the media, and the closely allied salariat of the Catholic Church, would all be pursuing a vendetta against you for the rest of your life.

Happy Holidays?

Easter and Eid al-Fitr both fell during the lockdown, and those who are now locked down for Eid al-Adha may at least console themselves that the whole country is undoubtedly facing Christmas in lockdown. 

Boris Johnson has now realised that he is the Prime Minister, and no longer a Telegraph columnist paid to be "contrarian" for a lark. But it has taken him 70,000 deaths to work it out.

His R's From His Elbow

The Prime Minister has just as good as announced the second lockdown. It is coming, and probably quite soon.

Boris Johnson used to be paid to be a "contrarian" columnist of the kind that at the moment alternately files the Lockdown Is Rubbish column and the I Am Being Cancelled column. 

But he no longer is one. He is the Prime Minister. While his failure to understand the difference has cost 70,000 lives and counting, we may now dare to hope that it will not cost 70,000 more.

Speaking of not knowing the difference, if Twitter had existed in the Blair years, then, unlike Matt Hancock, Cabinet Ministers would not have announced major changes in policy at the very last moment and via their personal Twitter accounts.

Instead, every change, large or small, would have been announced at the very last moment and via Tony Blair's personal Twitter account. Or Alastair Campbell's.

Ee, Begum?

The Government has won the right to appeal against the court ruling to allow Shamima Begum back into the country. So keep saying it, because some people still do not seem to understand. Begum went to Syria to support the side that Britain was officially supporting there. 

We were backing them in Syria, although we were bombing them in Iraq, where our actions had created them from scratch. Without the invasion of Iraq in 2003, then there would never have been any so-called Islamic State.

In Syria, allegiances shifted, but there were two blocs, Assad and anti-Assad. The permanent core of anti-Assad was IS. With the regime, it was one of only two forces that could ever have won in the end. So, in siding against Assad, we sided with IS.

Who else do you think that we wanted, and officially still do want, to overthrow Assad? The Lib Dems? A schoolgirl who went off to join IS was still wrong. But she was not the most to blame here. Every British Government of Begum's lifetime is to some extent to blame for her.

Oliver Kamm Libel Watch: Day 24

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.

Highest Rate of Excess

England has Europe's highest rate of excess deaths from Covid-19. The fact that the other side is fiscally and internationally more hawkish, and even more cavalier with working-class and politically black lives, is the only reason not to call for the Government to resign on the spot.

The lockdown was imposed too late, and it is being lifted too early, in order to placate people who, despite having worked from home for years, have suddenly decided that they had somewhere that they urgently needed to be. I would love to know where that place was.

They have moaned, and moaned, and moaned in the newspaper columns that they otherwise use to bellow about how they are being silenced by "cancel culture". Some of us have never not been cancelled. What is to be their next revelation? The existence of fake news?

But they have spent 15 years demanding that Boris Johnson be made Prime Minister, and dismissing out of hand the claims of everyone else, including four successive holders of the office. They are tied to him. He need not give any thought whatever to them.

And in general he does not, while his successor simply never does at all. The Budget of March 2020 has ended the era that began with the Budget of 1976. The Centre is the think tank for this new era. It already has plenty going on.

None of that would be possible under the people who were now back in charge of what little remained of the Labour Party, permanently eight to 10 points behind a Government that had caused the needless deaths of 70,000 people and counting.

In Black And White

The evils of Saudi Arabia are well-known. 

But the real reason for the withdrawal of its bid for Newcastle United is far more likely to have been that the collapse in the price of oil meant that it was no longer good for the money.

With Saudi Arabia come all of the House of Saud's enemies. St James' Park will not now become one of the prime terrorist targets in the world. If this bid had gone through, then it would have done.

Utterly Shameful?

What would be the correct conviction rate for rape, and why?

"They Might Not Vote At All"

As someone screamed at me 17 years ago on the subject of whether or not the working classes would vote for a Labour ticket with me on it. 

He himself came off the local public sector gentry, he was at the time employed by a Cabinet Minister, and he turned out to be unelectable to the point of contagion after he was put on the ballot paper without a selection meeting because I would have won it. So next year's catastrophic local election results for Labour will be my second time of being able to answer the Labour Right's jibe of "You're unelectable" with, "Well, so are you."

If Labour kept control of Durham County Council next year, then the election would have been rigged. There would simply be no other possible explanation. This is the most corrupt municipality in Western Europe, so there would be none of the shock that might accompany such a realisation anywhere else. Even mild surprise would be unlikely. People would just shrug their shoulders and ask to be told something that they did not already know.

The Labour Party in County Durham routinely engages in practices such as fielding decoy candidates to split the Opposition vote. I personally witnessed tampering with a ballot box at the count in 2017. I know for a fact that the boxes in Burnhope were stuffed against me, and possibly at least one in Lanchester as well. When I stood for Parliament, then getting the paperwork out of County Hall was like pulling teeth, and I was simply never sent a copy of the electoral register. But I grew up with this kind of thing.

Just as I am unshocked by jury tampering. I feel for the widow of PC Andrew Harper, but I have been there and done that. And not at the hands of illiterate teenagers. I have had a show trial that would have shamed North Korea, where at least they have the decency not to pretend. On the weight of the "evidence" that convicted me, then Oliver Kamm and the Prosecution's witness against my character would both now be preparing to serve very long prison sentences. But they are not.

All of that brings me back to the reprobate with whom I began. His deployment of the Angry Black Woman trope against Diane Abbott was a racist incident within the understanding of the Macpherson Report, which has now been canonised by the people who used to want to burn it, just as they have decided to revere the admittedly black-free Equality and Human Rights Commission, which they used to want to abolish.

Yet that racist former London Regional Director of the Labour Party remains politically protected to the point of immunity from arrest, even though the facts are not in dispute, and even though at least one complaint has certainly been made to the Police.

All You Have Left

Lisa McKenzie writes: 

Grime star Wiley’s anti-Semitic Tweets mirror a sentiment shared by some in the poorest communities in working-class Britain. A lack of education on the class system means the marginalised believe the wildest conspiracy theories. 

Last week, grime artist Wiley sent Twitter into meltdown with his racist and anti-Semitic rants. They were outrageous and disgusting, but not surprising, once you start to contextualise, analyse and understand neoliberal Western democracy. 

Anti-Semitism in its current form nods to every other anti-Semitic narrative going back to the middle ages; the ‘greedy Jew’, the ‘money-obsessed Jew’ and ‘secretive demonic powerful cults’. 

It feeds on out-of-control inequality, wild and unrestrained neoliberal politics, the total and absolute failure of the Left to keep class politics at the forefront of its agenda, and the rise of identity politics. 

And that all adds up to a perfect recipe for millions of poor, working-class people wondering why – in a world where they are told they can be anything they want to be according to neoliberalism – their grandparents died in poverty, their parents live in poverty, and they are now looking out into the void of precarity and demise? 

I wrote a book about a community in Nottingham, a place which is one of Britain’s most multiethnic, multicultural areas, where I had lived for 25 years. As part of the research for the book Getting By, I spent a year in a boxing gym and barber shop. 

Those spaces were predominantly male and 100 percent working-class white, black, mixed-race and Asian people. We argued every single minute of every day; the debates in Westminster and in local party political meetings paled in comparison. They were passionate, lively, sometimes good-natured, sometimes very aggressive, but always inclusive of anyone who walked in. “What do you think?” would be shouted at every new person who arrived. 

Sometimes the debates were about football, sometimes they were about the ethics of the local community; for example, under what circumstances is it appropriate to call the police? ‘Mostly never’ was the answer to that one, unless harm was done to children or the elderly (and even then, it was, of course, debatable). 

However, the debates around power were as omnipresent as power itself. Why, they shouted, are we stopped and searched by the police constantly? Why does no one from round here ever become successful? Why are there so many children involved in violence and drug dealing? And why are our ‘yutes’ dying? These were questions all day, every day interspersed with Premier League chat.

There were no answers, or no answers that made sense to them. I tried to talk about class inequality, and about how those with wealth used that wealth to purposefully keep them powerless and subservient. And how this is a structured system that everyone takes part in.

But that conversation is so hard to have among people who desperately need hope that something could happen to change their situation. They require belief that the system which is slowly killing them will one day work for them. If they don’t have that, then what hope is there? 

In places that have no resources, no wealth, no real education and no political representation, all they have is hope, whether that’s the National Lottery, becoming a famous footballer or grime artist, or somehow coming across money and getting out. The problems come when they try to piece together why this is the case? Why, from the minute they are born, do they stand no chance? And this is where the conspiracy theories, like those put forward by Wiley, have enough air to live and to thrive.

I have argued and screamed with fury at men who have told me ‘it’s the Jews’ controlling the music industry or it’s the Illuminati controlling everything, and the only way working- class – and especially black – people can become successful is to be part of these demonic cults interconnected with elite paedophile rings, banking bail-outs, funding Islamic terrorism and now Covid-19. 

It’s all mashed together to explain why and how decent, hard-working people constantly live and die in poverty. These arguments originally came from the extreme Right and white supremacists, but now they are rife in poor, working-class, interracial communities.

To me, this is evidence of the absolute failure of left-wing politics, and the victory of neoliberal democracy, where we are reduced to nothing more than an individual unit bumping around, succeeding or failing.

And all the while, the system awards some with unearned and undeserved advantages, success, and wealth and security, while others are mired in poverty, and their ‘failure’ is their own – while the structure of an unfair and unjust system remains cloaked in invisibility.

I remember one very lively afternoon in the barber’s shop, where I tried desperately to explain the British class system, using the local elite private boys school as an example of how power works and is reproduced. I failed to win the argument, because, they argued, how could it be that easy and transparent? 

No, they shouted, it’s about a demonic death cult made up of Jews and rich celebrities working in an undercover sect with the Illuminati purposefully keeping them down. Without class politics, without class struggle, without a critique and an education that takes to pieces the neoliberal system of class reproduction, all you have left are identity politics and Donald Trump.

Briefing Notes

None of these would take the pay cut to front the daily Downing Street briefings. 

But look at those CVs: the supposedly rival but actually interchangeable media of supposedly rival but actually interchangeable politics.

Righties, we tried to tell you about knifing Jeremy Corbyn. By re-closing the debate, you were shutting yourselves out of it. 

Only RT would have you on, just as only RT would have us. That is why Keir Starmer wants to close it down. 

And look at that list. We tried to tell you.

The People's Choice, Indeed

I do not normally hold with this kind of thing, but do make sure to vote for Jeremy Corbyn.

"The Systems of Racism and Other Bigotries"

"Kano: an apology. This article mistakenly carried a photograph of Kano when it was first published. The Guardian apologises unreservedly to Kano and our readers for the error, which has now been corrected. We would also like to clarify that Owen Jones was not involved in this error."

The Guardian thinks that all black people look the same. I have not laughed so much in a very long time.

Campaign For Chris

Please give generously: 

Chris Williamson has revealed that he has been named in the EHRC's confidential Draft Report into the Labour Party's handling of antisemitism. 

Chris will be taking legal action about this and other matters. As part of this, Chris has put together a legal team to fight the EHRC, and he needs our support. 

We need to raise £20,000 so that Chris can have the legal power at his disposal to properly take this forward. 

Chris has pledged that all funds that are recovered or left unused will be donated to the Left Legal Fighting Fund to assist other activists, just as he did when he won all his costs from the Labour Party after taking them to court last year. 

Our movement can’t rely on wealthy donors to get justice. But our collective solidarity will allow us to overcome, and defeat those who want to destroy the Left. 

Solidarity works. Together, let’s prove it. Please donate today.

Oliver Kamm Libel Watch: Day 23

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.

Food Fight

Why are school meals not free for everyone? In how many other developed countries is that not already the case?

Do you have to produce your dinner money at a tax-exempt commercial school, such as those attended by the Prime Minister and by the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Come on Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. Not that it matters, but you would not even have to issue yourself with very much fiat currency for this one. 

One that the last Labour Government not only never did, but specifically and repeatedly ruled out. The Centre is the think tank for this new era. It already has plenty going on.

Be Loud, Be Vocal

Exclusively for Newsweek, because no British publication will touch such blasphemy against the "Equality and Human Rights Commission" that materialised out of thin air in order to destroy the unexpected emergence of an alternative to neoliberal economic policy and to neoconservative foreign policy, Basit Mahmood writes:

Two former commissioners at the U.K.'s Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the country's equalities watchdog, say they were not reappointed to their roles because they were "too loud and vocal" about issues of race, Newsweek can reveal.

Baroness Meral Hussein-Ece, who at the time was the only Muslim commissioner and Lord Simon Woolley who was the only black commissioner, both lost their positions in November 2012. 

It comes as the Government Equalities Office (GEO) advertises for four new commissioners for the EHRC, which is an independent body responsible for the promotion and enforcement of equality and non-discrimination laws in England.

The EHRC says its simple goal is to make Britain fairer, with its set of enforcement powers to challenge discrimination, promote equality of opportunity and protect human rights. It has been awarded an "A" status as a National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) by the United Nations.

At present, it has no black or Muslim members among its board of ten commissioners, which also includes the chair. It currently stands accused of not standing up for British Muslims and being too close to the ruling Conservative Party, both claims the EHRC firmly denies.

"We were too loud for what the new coalition government wanted," Lord Woolley told Newsweek. "Our job as commissioners was to do exactly what they were supposed to do, to raise the fundamental issues of tackling race inequality in education, in health, in employment, within the criminal justice system and I saw that as my central role, but it was made very quickly aware to me that that strong voice was not wanted.

"They [the government] didn't want the voices that challenge the big structural inequalities, which of course is the raison d'être of the commission, and then to work out plans to use its powers to demand change. The commission should not be a space for a chit-chat, this is perhaps one of the only bodies that we have in our country to hold our big institutions to account when it comes to racial injustice." 

Baroness Hussein-Ece said that she too feared that being vocal about issues of race worked against her. She said: "We were the ones who spoke more about race. Race equality generally was put on the back burner during that period."

She described the decision not to reappoint herself and Lord Woolley at the time as an "appalling" thing to do. "We were told to apply for the next term because it's a four-year term, our performance was deemed good, and that we should reapply," she said. "When we did reapply, we were told we weren't even shortlisted." 

She also said that she was told by the Equalities Office at the time that more commissioners from business backgrounds were desirable. "They wanted business people running it apparently, the budget was really slashed and the number of commissioners was slashed as well," Baroness Hussein-Ece said. 

Both former commissioners said they felt the EHRC did not have the resources or budget to carry out its functions effectively, with significant cuts to its budget taking place since it was set up in 2007, taking over the responsibilities of three former separate organizations: the Commission for Racial Equality, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Disability Rights Commission. 

The EHRC was founded, it says, to challenge discrimination, promote equality of opportunity and protect human rights. Baroness Hussein-Ece said: "When I was there, it had more staff, more resources and the ability to take on more work."

Lord Woolley claims that replacing the former Commission for Racial Equality and amalgamating the former bodies into one, meant that it was difficult for the EHRC to maintain a focus on tackling racial inequality. 

"When we had the commission for racial equality, we had the budget, a focus to move the dial, we hoped we could, we hoped that with the amalgamated commissions, that we could maintain a focus but we always knew that would be a huge challenge, sadly we were proven right." In 2007, the commission had a budget of £70 million ($90 million). In June 2010, the EHRC's budget was reduced from £62m ($79 million) to £55m ($70 million). 

It currently stands at £17.4 million ($21 million). The EHRC now has 206 members of staff. In February 2009, it had 425 fixed-term members of staff. 

"Less budget, less staff, no black commissioners, and I think that, in many ways, the commission couldn't assert themselves," Lord Woolley says. Out of its core funding of £17.4 million for 2019/20, most - over £12 million ($15.4 million) - was spent on administration costs and around £5 million ($6.4 million) on program costs.

The EHRC is most proud of issuing county court proceedings against the right-wing political organization the British National Party (BNP), forcing it to change its membership rules; publishing a report on discrimination within the Metropolitan Police Service and launching an investigation into the Labour party over alleged anti-Semitism among members, with a full judgment expected later this year. 

Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC, who was a legal adviser to the Commission for Racial Equality echoed the concerns of the commissioners regarding the claim that the EHRC lacked the resources to carry out its role effectively. "I'm somewhat disappointed with the EHRC," he told Newsweek.

"It was given a very heavy responsibility because it was an amalgamation of previous bodies and it wasn't given adequate resources and it has tended to pick and choose issues to tackle which are not necessarily the most important ones. It has not really tackled the big issue which is now very current which is racial disadvantage and discrimination that exists." 

Sir Geoffrey believes that the commission hasn't taken on enough legal cases to challenge discrimination. He said: "They don't have the money to take up the issues, particularly they don't have the money to support individuals who wish to complain about discrimination.

"When the old commission for racial equality was in existence, I was its legal adviser for many years, it conducted a number of cases that were bought by individuals to the county courts and employment tribunals, complaining and challenging discrimination. We took a number of cases even as far as the House of Lords, through the judicial system, challenging discriminatory practices for example by working men's clubs by local authorities, on a whole range of issues, we see very little of that from the EHRC." 

Sir Geoffrey thinks without government support, it's difficult for the EHRC to succeed in its stated aims and ambitions of challenging discrimination and protecting and promoting human rights. "Ultimately the commission itself and the commissioners are perhaps not most to blame for the inadequacies, it's much more a question of commitment by the government, willingness to put the sufficient resources in and their belief in the validity of anti-discrimination legislation." 

This point was echoed by Lord Woolley. "Particularly after austerity, particularly after the coalition government, it (EHRC) lost its funding, it lost many of its staff and at times it seemed to be frightened of its own shadow," Woolley said.

Both former commissioners and Sir Geoffrey also said that the EHRC had not done enough to investigate and tackle Islamophobia in the Conservative Party. Baroness Hussein-Ece said: "I don't think Islamophobia or anti-Muslim hate is taken seriously" and called for the EHRC to do more. Lord Woolley said all political parties had to be held to account when it came to tackling prejudice, whether it be Labour for anti-Semitism but also the Conservatives for Islamophobia. 

He said: "The need for a strong equality commission, particularly around race and inequality has never been more needed. The challenges our society faces as highlighted by Black Lives Matter and COVID-19, demand structural change." 

Maria Miller MP, minister for women and equalities from 2012-14 and chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee from 2015-2019, says the commission is in need of fundamental reform if it is to be effective. "The Women and Equalities Select Committee did an inquiry on EHRC's effectiveness and the findings were very much that the organization is not an effective organization, it needs some fundamental changes and this was backed up by a report done by the government," she told Newsweek. 

"This isn't about funding, it's about the structure of the organization, I think it a red herring to suggest that by giving the EHRC money it would make it more effective, there is no evidence to suggest that the [funding] problems are widespread, primarily because it doesn't use its existing enforcement powers effectively and it's not seen as an effective organization."

She said: "The EHRC has unique enforcement powers which are extremely powerful, extremely strong where they can intervene on organizations who they suspect are breaching the equality act, but they use those powers extremely rarely. 

"In the BBC's equal pay dispute, which had widespread coverage, individuals going on the record and talking about problems of equal pay, which the EHRC has legal powers to look into, it took many months before the EHRC intervened. One of the problems clearly creating a barrier is the EHRC's interpretation of the threshold for acting.

"The EHRC hide behind the threshold of suspecting an unlawful act has happened and are therefore failing to act, even in cases that are extremely well known. It's really disappointing and it creates an environment where people feel there is very little likelihood of organization or individuals being held to account if they breach the equality act. That isn't to do with budgets, it's to do with their strategic approach as an organization." 

Ms. Miller said she had no knowledge of the commissioners not being reappointed because they were too vocal about issues of racial equality. She also said she was unaware of demands that the EHRC investigates the Conservative Party over alleged Islamophobia.

A spokesperson for the EHRC said it had a strong record of using its legal powers to make Britain a fairer society. They told Newsweek:"We are a confident and robust defender of people's rights and have a strong track record of using our unique legal powers to make Britain a fair society in which everyone has an equal opportunity to fulfill their potential and participate, without being limited by prejudice or discrimination. 

"The best way to tackle the root causes of inequality and secure a fairer Britain is by using a combination of our research, policy expertise and legal powers to expose discrimination, make public bodies and businesses comply with their legal duties and hold them to account. As set out in the Equality Act, commissioners are appointed by the government of the day. Our chair is on record as saying that he would like a more diverse board which reflects all protected characteristics." 

David Isaac, chair of the EHRC, accused the government of "dragging its feet" over racism. He told the BBC's Today Programme: "There are lots of people of color who need supporting and for that reason a coherent race strategy is a top priority and I call upon the government to act urgently. I do believe the government is dragging its feet. They seek to understand it [racism], they're clearly talking to lots of people with lived experience and that's important, but are they taking action and is this a top priority? I don't believe so." 

He also said he had enough of government reviews on the matter and said the government had to get on with tackling race inequality. Isaac has repeatedly refused the opportunity to discuss race inequality when asked by Newsweek for an interview on a number of occasions.

Isaac told the BBC that the EHRC had doubled the use of its enforcement powers, undertaken inquiries in matters concerning racial harassment and also taken more investigations than the past. Responding to claims of a lack of diversity among its commissioners, he said: "We've done all we can to recommend people of color, my urgent request is that when the new commissioners are appointed in the autumn that we will be truly representative and that will include people of color and black people." 

U.K. equalities minister Kemi Badenoch rejected Sir David Isaac's claims that the government was dragging its feet. "It is disappointing because I have had several meetings with him [David Isaac] and he's never raised that with me," she told the BBC.

"I was appointed to this role in February and I came into it in April, just after my maternity leave, I'm the first black equalities minister we've had in many years and this is a top priority for me. It's just simply not true that the government's dragging its heels on this issue and I absolutely refute that."

The Government Equality Office did not respond to Newsweek's numerous requests for interviews or comment.

They Were Wrong On Both Counts

The wheels are coming off the lawfare against the Left:

I am Jane Heybroek, a barrister specialising in immigration work. I was the subject of discourse on Twitter, and reports in the mainstream media, earlier this year, as a result of a libel claim being brought against me by the television presenter Rachel Riley and the actress Tracy Ann Oberman.

I am now able to report that the claim against me has been withdrawn and that Ms Riley and Ms Oberman have agreed to make contributions towards my legal costs. I wish to thank everyone who has helped me in the last 18 months; it will not be forgotten.

Ms Riley and Ms Oberman are not personally known to me. Their claim saw them seeking damages and costs in respect of my re-tweet of a tweet by the blogger Shaun Lawson, which contained a link to a blog article he had written about them in January 2019.

Mr Lawson’s article, which concerned the celebrities’ alleged behaviour towards a teenage Labour supporter on Twitter in January 2019, had been re-tweeted/shared by hundreds of people. Some of those people were threatened with legal action like me; others were not.

Ultimately, despite press reports which suggested as many as 70 people might face legal action, I was the only person who was sued. This was despite the fact that I had deleted my re-tweet before I had even received Letters of Claim. I did not even know how long my re-tweet had been live for. Neither, it seems, did Ms Riley or Ms Oberman.

There was no evidence, that I am aware of, to suggest that anyone had read the blog article as a result of clicking the link in my re-tweet. There were also various other ways in which the claim against me could have been (and would have been, had it proceeded) defended.

Ms Riley and Ms Oberman were being represented, from the very outset, on a ‘no win, no fee’ basis, and had ‘after the event insurance’. This meant that there was almost no risk to them in bringing the claim. Many people would have felt forced to settle for reasons of pragmatism.

Whilst I am in a more fortunate position than most, after having spent almost £30,000 by a very early stage, it was clear to me that I would have no prospect of funding my defence to trial without help. I therefore launched a fundraiser on the website CrowdJustice.com, and was overwhelmed by the response which I received.

Due to the support of a great many people, I was able to continue to retain leading defamation lawyers, and properly contest the case.

I am making this statement for the benefit of those who have supported me emotionally and financially, and to address one other issue.

Ms Riley and Ms Oberman’s vocal stance against antisemitism (and perceived antisemitism) has been widely documented, as has their involvement in other legal cases. This claim, however, did not actually involve any allegations of antisemitism against me or indeed Mr Lawson.

I understand that Mr Lawson is himself Jewish and that his grandmother was a holocaust survivor. For my part, I abhor all forms of racism. 

Unfortunately, as a result of the litigation, I was subject of a number of nasty comments from a small minority of people who simply presumed to know what the case was about and what the outcome would be. They were wrong on both counts.

Finally, as I have said throughout to those who have supported me, I ask people, for their own sakes, not to discuss the content of Mr Lawson’s article, nor to comment on Ms Riley or Ms Oberman on social media more generally.

Notwithstanding the fact that I am a lawyer by profession, this has been a long, and at times exhausting experience, and I would not wish anyone to find themselves on the receiving end of legal action.

Oliver Kamm Libel Watch: Day 22

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.

On The Spike

Even Boris Johnson admits that the second spike is coming.

The lockdown was imposed too late, and it is being eased too early. Quarantine was imposed too late, and it is going to be eased too early.

And the Prime Minister readily admits what the result is going to be. Oh, for a Leader of the Opposition.

Take Flight

Support for the BA workers is of the utmost importance.

Join the union that is most appropriate to your job. If none is, including if you are not in work, then join Unite Community.

Unmarked

It is shocking, and it should be, to white, bourgeois people in Portland that they are being attacked by riotous law enforcement officers who are wearing no identification numbers, who are going around in unmarked vehicles, and so on.

But black America has been experiencing all of this forever, not merely with the connivance, but as the expression, of the liberal Democratic Party machine that is now railing theatrically against Donald Trump and William Barr while endorsing Joe Biden, of all people.

At least the right-wing Labour machine has never had the gall to pretend to object to the Police riot against the miners at Orgreave, or to the general policing of the Miners' Strike, which likewise featured extreme violence by Police Officers, if they really were, who had no identification numbers and who went around in unmarked vehicles.

There was no inquiry in 13 years of Labour Government, under Prime Ministers who sat for County Durham and for Fife, and the commitment to one has now been dropped under a Leader who, as a former Director of Public Prosecutions, has identified himself with the people who took selfies alongside the bodies of murder victims.

Theresa May did initially promise an inquiry into Orgreave, and under Boris Johnson the Conservative Party now represents the constituency in which it occurred. All that we really need to do is ask. And then, what on earth would Keir Starmer say? The Centre is the think tank for this new era. It already has plenty going on.

Fusion, Not Confusion

An "all of the above" energy policy, including fusion power, will celebrate and advance the full compatibility between the highest view of human demographic, economic, intellectual and cultural expansion and development, and the most active concern for the conservation of the natural world and of the treasures bequeathed by such expansion and development in the past.

That expansion and development must now include space exploration, fuelled by, and fuelling, fusion power. Life is the geological force that shapes the Earth, and the emergence of human cognition fundamentally transforms the biosphere, not least by the uniquely human phenomenon of economic growth, so that human mastery of nuclear processes is beginning to create resources through the transmutation of elements, enabling us, among other things, to explore space and to exploit the resources of the Solar System.

The Centre is the think tank for this new era. It already has plenty going on.

Suspect

Did the McCanns have their other two children taken away from them? 

They were two when their parents left them with their not quite four-year-old sister in a foreign country and went out on the town.

People without the McCanns' advantages lose their children for far less than that.

To Create Robust Social Structures

Zoe Williams makes a strong, if standard, case against commercial schools. But those schools do regularly provide left-wing figures with a platform that they are seldom or never afforded by the schools of the municipal Labour Right.

Jeremy Corbyn no doubt turns down numerous invitations from them, although he might be accepting them now. I expect that Chris Williamson would accept them, if he is not already doing so. George Galloway has been accepting them regularly for years. 

We should be wary of any attempt to subvert the existing means of bypassing the alliance between the liberal elite in and around academia and the media, and the right-wing Labour machine in local government. The Centre is the think tank for this new era. It already has plenty going on.

You Can Hardly See The Join

Seven months after its fourth successive General Election defeat, Labour hovers around eight to 10 points behind. 

In 1992, seven months after its fourth successive General Election defeat, Labour was 33 points ahead. At that time, only the most obsessive political anorak had ever heard of Tony Blair.

We are told that under Keir Starmer, more people have joined the Labour Party than have left it. But so what if they have? Huge numbers of people joined the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn. It still lost.

At this rate, Labour will soon have more members than voters.

The End of the Rainbow

The leprechauns' crock of gold has been found.

And it is one of the most hardcore Republican villages in Northern Ireland.

God has a sense of humour.

Not Worth Starmering About

Jeremy Corbyn is still news. Tony Blair is still news.

But Keir Starmer is still not news. So he is never going to be news.

Eat It Up

Especially in the pages of the Telegraph titles and of The Spectator, the right-wing commentariat has spent 15 years demanding that Boris Johnson be made Prime Minister, and it is now entirely tied to any and everything that he might do. 

The issuing of limitless fiat currency in order to fund gigantic public infrastructure projects in constituencies that voted for Jeremy Corbyn once and sometimes twice. The removal of statues that had stood on every day of every Labour Government, often under Labour Councils.

The lockdown. Face masks. Quarantine. A ban on the television advertising of junk food before the watershed. A ban on such advertising online. Limits on buy-one-get-one-free offers. No more sweets at the checkout, by law. Compulsory calorie counts on foods eaten away from home.

The rail renationalisation that is being so seriously considered that that fact has been made public. Trade union leaders in government. Priti Patel's impending invitation of Black Lives Matter into government. Everything. The Centre is the think tank for this new era. It already has plenty going on.

Fat Chance?

I am obese. I know what I have to do to stop being obese, and so does Boris Johnson. The difference is that for his anti-obesity campaign to have any credibility, then he himself would visibly need to lose weight.

Far from boring easily and moving on, Johnson was a two-term Mayor of London. And for good or ill, his first act on being given any executive authority was to ban the consumption of alcohol on the Tube. Johnson imposed the lockdown too late, with catastrophic results. He is lifting it too early, with catastrophic results. But this time could be different. 

If this time Johnson really did take account of the class and ethnic issues; bluntly, that means economic inequality. And if this time Johnson really did take account of the objective reality of biological sex. But who will be "bossy and nannying" enough to make him?

Back To Black

I don't like "BAME", either. I use it, but it was obviously invented by a committee. Whereas the old term "politically black", while it now looks like a product of American academia, was in fact of British origin, and it came from the streets. It may be worth bringing it back.

The young men who are twice as likely as their white peers to be fined for breaches of the lockdown are politically black. People's problems have all sorts of roots, but the roots of theirs at least include the fact that they are not white, or not white enough. Whatever else they may also be, that makes them politically black.

Especially but not exclusively in our youth, politically black men are always at the sharp end, because Anglo-American culture's fear of us is fundamental. Which trade created an Anglo-American culture, as such? Well, there you are, then.

Donald Trump has many, many faults. But he has never been Strom Thurmond's eulogist, the father of the prison-industrial complex, the restorer of the federal death penalty, or the man who opposed bussing because he did not want his children to grow up in "a racial jungle".

And Boris Johnson has made off-colour remarks, so to speak, about letterboxes, and picaninnies, and so on. But he has never been the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Oliver Kamm Libel Watch: Day 21

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.

Putin It On Record

Was your vote swayed by Facebook ads placed by the Russians? Under a pseudonym if you preferred, The Lanchester Review would love to publish your story. Please contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com.

You get none of this from The Observer, which just assumes that you must exist, and exist in huge numbers, because the alternative is too horrific for it to contemplate. It certainly has no interest in anything that you might have to say.

Panoramic View

While mocking the fundraiser for Jeremy Corbyn because it has taken money from Derek Hatton and from Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, Guido Fawkes suggests that John Ware might not sue after all.

Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners are depicted in the Christmas television favourite, Pride. They are great fun. 

But if Ware bottled it at the sight of this, then Corbyn could now perfectly easily afford to sue him, among other people.

Can you imagine anyone giving £2:50 to help out the Blairites? In fact, who is paying for Ware? It is no wonder that he is hinting through Guido that he might chicken out. 

The Left had been in a bad way recently. But this crowdfunder has given it a lease of life not seen since Owen Thingy tried to take the Labour Leadership from Corbyn in the summer of 2016.

Keep those donations coming in.

Oliver Kamm Libel Watch: Day 20

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.

Free, View

The Observer is running the Russiagate story as if everything had gone according to plan. The unhinged Carole Cadwalladr has two articles. Two. Of course, they are essentially the same article. They always are if they are by her. But even so.

If Labour were to get its way and RT were to lose its licence, then would the guests interviewed on, say, Going Underground, or Sputnik, or Keiser Report, or The Alex Salmond Show, be on Newsnight instead? Or on Channel 4 News?

Check who those guests have been. Keir Starmer wants to silence all of those voices, because of course he does. Thank goodness that he will never be in government.

In the meantime, not only should we be fighting to keep RT licensed and on Freeview, but we should be fighting for Freeview spots for Press TV, teleSUR English, EWTN, and Fox News. All five, as one.

For decades, I have been hearing from nominally British but for all practical purposes American commentators on the Right that, given the option, people in Britain would watch Fox News.

Well, then, let's give them the option. Along with these other options, none of which could be described as part of the metropolitan liberal elite of Keir Starmer and Carole Cadwalladr.

Rare Meat

As Tony Blair makes his weekly rare intervention, the only one worth hearing would be that he intended to be the parliamentary candidate that the Labour Party now needed at Sedgefield. Put up or shut up, Blair. Put up or shut up.

If an Establishment journalist had produced material that was highly critical of Blair, and if Blair had replied very robustly indeed, then would that journalist have invoked the English law of libel to sue Blair? For example, did Andrew Gilligan do that?

By suing Jeremy Corbyn, John Ware, who probably assumes it implicitly, has put on record the Establishment view that Corbyn never was a real Party Leader, and that despite having been an MP since 1983 he is not even a real politician. Presumably, he would not have been a real Prime Minister, either.

Keep those donations coming in. And Blair, announce yourself as the Labour candidate at Sedgefield. It is not as if Keir Starmer would contradict you. Put up or shut up.

Why The British Wear Masks

Baffled Americans, yes, you did get that libertarian streak from us, even if you did have to fight us in order to assert it for yourselves, although somewhat less so for your slaves.

But as a wise man, who has since gone to his rest, once said to me, "The thing about the Americans is that they have never had bombs dropped on them." After six years of nightly aerial bombardment of an island country whose ports had been blockaded, the people of that country had learned to pull together, to do their bit, to make do and mend.

There is a reason why the British still talk about "the War". Few people alive today were alive during the War, almost no one alive today fought in the War, and Britain has been in plenty of wars since then. But no one would ever ask, "Which war?" And next to no one would ever seek to assert a pre-War libertarian tradition against the wearing of face masks to ward off Covid-19, any more than against the existence of the National Health Service. The same is true of quarantine.

The exceptions spend too much time reading nominally British but culturally American newspapers, whether liberal or conservative in American terms, for the most part because they spend too much time writing for those newspapers. They already worked from home, yet the lockdown seems to have given them somewhere that they urgently needed to be. And you know that they are being silenced, because they never stop bellowing about how silenced or "cancelled" they are being.

Some of us have never not been cancelled, specifically by them; by liberals and Official Rightists alike, insofar as there is a difference, and now by the Official Left as well. But we refuse to be cancelled anymore. The Budget of March 2020 has ended the era that began with the Budget of 1976. The Centre is the think tank for this new era. It already has plenty going on.

What Are The Lib Dems For?

There is a Liberal tradition that is not the authoritarian "centrism" of New Labour and, if you can remember this one, of Change UK. Nor is it a universal welcome wagon for any and all Remainers and Re-joiners.

But the Conservatives moved sharply to the left economically, and they became far more dovish internationally, when they ceased to be in government with the Liberal Democrats, including Ed Davey, who seems to be on course to become the next Leader of that party.

Be in no doubt that it was the Conservatives who were the moderating influence in the Coalition. The subsequent record fully bears that out. Davey wishes to restore the cry of the fiscal and international hawks to the British political field, but Keir Starmer has already done that. Whether fiscally or internationally, the Lib Dems or anyone else would struggle to be even more hawkish than Labour was now.

Davey's opponent, Layla Moran, professes to reject the terminology, but is generally described as wishing to position the Lib Dems to the left of Labour. As if that were saying anything in this Parliament.

Free of the Lib Dems, even Theresa May wanted workers' and consumers' representation in corporate governance, shareholders' control over executive pay, restrictions on pay differentials within companies, an investment-based Industrial Strategy and infrastructure programme including greatly increased housebuilding, action against tax avoidance including a ban on public contracts for tax-avoiding companies, a cap on energy prices, a ban or significant restrictions on foreign takeovers, a ban on unpaid internships, and an inquiry into Orgreave. Try suggesting any of that in the Labour Party these days.

Half of the Red Wall turned Blue in 2019, as most of the other half will in 2024. The Conservative Party became electorally dependent on constituencies that had voted for Jeremy Corbyn in 2017, and which would have done so again if he had stuck to his Bennite guns on Brexit. Next time, it will acquire many seats that had voted for Corbyn both times. Accordingly, and not because of Covid-19, the Government has adopted Modern Monetary Theory for the purpose of heavy reindustrialisation under close central government direction, including a strong dose of public ownership, and with the trade unions in government, where they will soon be joined by the BAME community leaders who twice mobilised Corbyn's most solid bloc of voters.

On yesterday's edition of The Week in Parliament, even Iain Martin casually described this as the Conservatives' historical norm, with Thatcherism as an aberration, a blip. Whether or not that is true, it is the line. The Durham Miners' Gala is now the national cultural mainstream, with ambitious Conservative MPs anxious to be associated with it. The Lib Dems or anyone else would struggle to be to the left of that. The claim that parties may govern like this, but they do not win on this basis, was arguably refuted last year, and it will be blown out of the water when Boris Johnson beats Starmer in 2024. The Centre is the think tank for this new era. It already has plenty going on.

Getting The Labour Right Right

Keep saying it until it sinks in. The Labour Right are not Tories at all. If they were, then they would rarely or never think about the Left. 

Until Jeremy Corbyn came along, then the Tories had not given the Left a second thought in 30 years, since the defeat of the miners.

Or at least in 25 years, since the All Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation, which was openly and obviously the Militant Tendency, had brought down Margaret Thatcher, as an extremely bitter chapter of her autobiography makes clear.

Whereas the Labour Right defines itself by thinking about nothing else. The two could not be less alike. 

The Left's failure to appreciate that is how the Labour Right keeps beating us.

When Your Target Returns The Favour

Peter Hitchens writes:

I am afraid I chortled several times as I read the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee’s oh-so-serious report on Russia. 

As well as being almost entirely free of new facts, it hilariously accused the Russians of being paranoid about us. 

Well, perhaps they are. Russia has been invaded so many times (even we have had a go) that it is entitled to be a bit over-defensive. 

But if so, the British attitude towards Moscow is just as psychiatric, especially given our elite’s greed for Russian money and their readiness to consort with (and take donations from) Russian billionaires who are no better than they ought to be. 

We have no border with Russia, nor any other territorial, naval or economic conflict, and long ago lost the Indian empire that lay at their back door. We hardly trade with them.

I am pretty sure that they spend very little time thinking about us, except as a minor hanger-on of the USA. Do they really seek to intervene in our politics? For what end?

They are a poor, under-populated country nearly 2,000 miles away, in serious danger of being bought up by China. 

And if they mount cyber-attacks on us, as I am sure they do, are we not doing the same to them?

I learned from the report that we now have something called a National Offensive Cyber Programme, whose title suggests that its staff might possibly engage in a little bit of electronic aggression from time to time. 

And quite right too. Countries that don’t prepare for battle lose wars. 

But it is a bit ridiculous to have an offensive cyber programme and then moan self-righteously when your target returns the favour.

We Have Liftoff

Oliver Kamm has libelled Jeremy Corbyn.

Keep those donations coming in. And let's get some of them spent.

Oliver Kamm Libel Watch: Day 19

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.

Get It Right

If you think that the Labour Right are "Tories", then you are the reason why it keeps beating the Left. 

There were Tories before there ever was a Labour Movement. They are not defined by it. Whereas the Labour Right is defined by its hatred and persecution of the Left. 

Understand that. Or keep losing.

Boasty Gang No More

Not that I miss it, but last year I was permanently banned from Twitter for casually mentioning the fact, which had been universally known for at least 10 years, that the then bothersome but now forgotten figure of Luciana Berger had been given her seat in Parliament because of her relationship with Tony Blair's eldest son.

Apparently, that was "anti-Semitic", meaning that my stalker, the non-Jewish Oliver Kamm, had taken exception to it. As I say, I do not miss Twitter. But it has banned Wiley for only seven days, having initially done so for a mere 12 hours. 

If that means that the Kammite Tendency is losing its grip on power, then I would be the last to object. Readers of the comments on Guido Fawkes, a site that has repeatedly carried the Berger-Blair story, will know that Kamm is in the middle of a breakdown because I am not in prison, and any fuel to that fire is obviously to be welcomed.

I do love the idea that Jeremy Corbyn ought to discipline Wiley, as if Wiley were Corbyn's slave. That is how "centrists" see black people, and especially black men. John Mann is particularly hilarious. He effectively admits that his own appointment as "Antisemitism Tsar", of all the things to call it, was a piece of political fluff, since he expects Corbyn to do the job for him.

Taking The Neil

Diane Abbott deserves a six figure payout for the racial abuse to which she was subjected by the Labour Party's staff. The London Regional Director who employed the Angry Black Woman trope against her has been calling me a "mulatto" for 17 years and counting.

He is now Head of Media Relations UK for the biggest bank in the world, headquartered in very diverse Birmingham. If Ms Abbott wanted me to testify against him, then I would be honoured to do so, and I may be contacted on davidaslindsay@hotmail.com.

In A Good Cause

"Why don't you give it to, like, the food banks or something?", pout the Blairites as they realise that, while walking moneybags are one thing, it would be laughable to suggest that more than 10,000 ordinary people might give them £2:50 altogether. 

Well, they may yet get what they profess to want. Howard Beckett, who led the legal team that successfully defended Jeremy Corbyn's right to be on the ballot for Labour Leader in 2016, has offered to act as his solicitor pro bono. And there are some superstar barristers on the Left.

In the meantime, though, keep those donations coming in. They will go to one good cause or another. Corbyn should have sued years ago, but his enemies are now so far up themselves that they are suing him. Unlike them, we all know what comes after hubris.

Don't Be Musked

Not least in the person of Elon Musk, who was a direct financial beneficiary of it, the Liberal Establishment cheered on the Trump Administration's white supremacist military coup in Bolivia, the country that contains 70 per cent of the world's reserves of lithium. "We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it," Musk tweeted on that subject this very day.

Lithium is of course essential to the "Green New Deal" and what have you; to the projected array of gigantic public subsidies to the transnational corporate enforcers of Political Correctness, of wokeness, and so forth, all the while dispossessing indigenous peoples on a mind-boggling scale. But we need not have any part in this, since there is lithium in Cornwall.

And it is not as if Kanye West needs Musk's money. Someone from West's background and of broadly West's views, including enthusiasm for space exploration, does need to be on the ballot for President of the United States everywhere in 2024. But that candidate must have little or nothing to do with Musk.

Oliver Kamm Libel Watch: Day 18

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 Crucial Juncture We Have Reached

Writing for The Lanchester Review is a good career move. Professor Alan Sked is to head the Alliance for Unity's list in the Highlands and Islands for the Scottish Parliament next year.

The Brexit Party took 233,006 votes in Scotland at last year's European Elections, with 28,418 for UKIP. Nigel Farage needs to endorse the Alliance for Unity, as George Galloway endorsed the Brexit Party. One good turn deserves another.

Every Frontier In The Struggle

Nadia Whittome is a very good example of why we on the Provisional Left are perfectly happy to have been excommunicated by and from the Official Left.

Even if all of my voters had voted for Laura Pidcock, and several of them would never have voted for any Labour candidate, then Richard Holden would still have won.

But in any case, Pidcock, like all the rest of them, had not distanced herself in any way from the betrayal of Bennism over Brexit, or from the betrayal of feminism over gender self-identification, or from the betrayal of anti-racism and anti-imperialism by, and pursuant to, the IHRA Definition.

I regret that the snap nature of the General Election precluded me from campaigning as comprehensively as I would have preferred. But I am proud of what I did, and I would do it again. Although legally I could, I do not want to. But I would.

Taking The Register

That should be the politer new way of saying, well, you know. In tribute to the Russia Report's recommendation that spies be required to register with the Government.

Yes, I know that there has been something like that in the United States for many decades. Has it worked? Well, there you are, then.

Money Talks

A fund to support Jeremy Corbyn against legal action by the likes of John Ware has so far raised £192,994 in well under 48 hours. Its initial target was £20,000. 

How is the begging to save The Guardian coming along?

Boys' Toys?

I am not a big fan of toy guns, but the arrest of 12-year-old Kai Agyepong for playing with one in his own home, a home that had been stormed by armed police, should stand as quite the riposte to the likes of Damian Thompson.

As so often, race and class mirror each other. Three years ago, people who were used to unlined faces at 50 insisted that refugees who looked like the teenage boys round here, and those had not been in a war zone, must in fact have been far older. And boys of colour, especially black boys, always "look older" to those white people who are determined to be frightened of them.

Fear of the black male is fundamental to the culture of Anglo-American liberals, who are the heirs of the slavers who founded the Manchester Guardian and the American Republic. Only six black men have ever sat as Labour MPs, there are only three at the moment, there are only two black men as Labour Peers, no black man has ever been elected as a Liberal or a Liberal Democrat MP (or for the SDP), and no black man has ever sat as a Peer for the Lib Dems or for their predecessors.

No one whose veins ran with 300 years of slavery and with 100 years of segregation has ever been either the Republican or the Democratic nominee for President or Vice President of the United States, although you have voted for such a Vice Presidential nominee if you voted for Pat Buchanan in 2000.

That may change thus year, but if it did, then the beneficiary would be a woman. For her brothers and her sons, then there would still the quadruple genocide in the womb, on the streets, on the battlefield, and at the hands of the criminal justice system. Unless someone else said that as baldly, and proposed to do something about it, then Kanye West would need to be on the ballot everywhere in 2024. He still would not win. But someone needs to make the debate about this.

Young Kai lives in Somers Town, which makes him a constituent of Keir Starmer's. Like all of us, he should be very afraid indeed of that man. I am light-skinned mixed-race, and my name is David Alexander Stephen Lindsay, yet the Prosecution made race a major issue, and I was convicted by an all-white jury that would have acquitted a white defendant on the same evidence. None of those 12 people disputes that, so far as I am aware. Therefore, it stands as a matter of record. A former Director of Public Prosecutions absolutely must not become Prime Minister. On the contrary, he must lose his seat in Parliament.