On Brand

Russell Brand has never been to my taste, but it is blatantly obvious that this is a political hitjob, and in any case his accusers ought to have made their complaints to the Police. As soon as Cornel West announced his candidacy on Brand's Rumble channel, then Brand was a marked man, so here come the Sunday Times and Dispatches. That channel has a larger audience than the Sunday Times and Channel 4 combined, and the Sunday Times is only too well-remembered by some of us for its treatment of Julian Assange, Jeremy Corbyn and others.

While I am sure that I could stand no more than a few seconds in Andrew Tate's company, I cannot imagine that the United States would allow a white liberal American citizen to be treated as he has been, and I have said from the very start that would not be at all surprised if little or nothing ended up coming of this. See also Cardinal Pell, Julian Assange, Alex Salmond, Ched Evans, and the victims of Freya Heath, whose conviction was merely set aside on a procedural technicality.

This has nothing to do with liking anyone. The beatification will presumably be the occasion of a Papal Visit to Australia, but if possible I shall be in Rome for Cardinal Pell's canonisation. To keep Assange's work going, then I would die in his stead. While I am opposed to the marrow of my bones to the political cause to which Salmond has devoted his life, I expect that he and I would get on. But I doubt that Evans and I would find much to talk about. I know that Heath's victims and I would have more than enough for a very heated discussion indeed. I have already said what I thought of Tate. So it is with Brand.

Even if the allegations against Brand were true, then would he really be the biggest fish that the media could find to fry? Peter Mandelson stayed at Jeffrey Epstein's apartment while Epstein was an incarcerated sex offender and Mandelson was a Cabinet Minister. First Secretary of State, in fact. Deputy Prime Minister in all but name. This post is this site's thirty-fifth mention of the connection between Mandelson and Epstein, with the first having been as long ago as 16th August 2019, and with most of these posts having been substantially the same as comments on Guido Fawkes.

Yet no one seems to think that this is news, even though Mandelson is the star turn at major right-wing Labour fundraising events, and even though he would undoubtedly be in any Cabinet of Keir Starmer's, probably as Deputy Prime Minister in name, and certainly as such in practice. Even from his cell, Epstein was still making donations to "Petie", whose former live-in lover, Peter Wilby, has recently been convicted of having had 167 indecent images of children, including 22 of their being subjected to penetration, bestiality or sadism.

That provides some context to the fact that Starmer was the Director of Public Prosecutions when the decision was made not to prosecute Jimmy Savile. In the words of Doughty Street Chambers, on its page about Starmer, now amusingly removed from public view: "He was Director of Public Prosecutions and Head of the Crown Prosecution Service from 2008-2013. As DPP, Keir was responsible for all criminal prosecutions in England and Wales." Therefore, Starmer would have been responsible for the decision not to charge Savile even if he had never set eyes on the file.

But that is in any case inconceivable. We are talking about Jimmy Savile here. That Starmer took the decision not to charge Savile has been repeated all over the place, far beyond parliamentary privilege. Starmer has yet to sue anyone for having made it. Starmer's "experience" as DPP is held up by his supporters as his qualification to be Prime Minister. Yet now they insist that it was a purely titular headship such as might have been given on an unpaid basis to a minor member of the Royal Family. Or, in his heyday, to Jimmy Savile.

Due to Savile's fame and connections, of course that decision was not made by anyone other than Starmer, just as of course he was sly enough not to have left a paper trail. Why did Starmer let Savile off? Why is Starmer so dependent on Epstein's closest associate in Britain, indeed one of Epstein's closest associates in the world, who is also an ex-partner of Wilby's? What sort of person therefore wants Starmer to become Prime Minister? How about that for a Dispatches?

But when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.