Stand Down Margaret/ Tony/ Gordon/ David

These are interesting days over at The Guardian's 'Comment is Free' site

First there was Charlton Brooker's smug and excruciatingly unfunny piece on 9/11 Conspiraloons which drew 1,778 warmly appreciative comments in next to no time...

So, you believe in conspiracy theories, do you? You probably also think you're the Emperor of Pluto

And now there's David Milliband's equally smug, but slightly funnier (unintentionally) piece, on why the Labour Government isn't really an unholy incarnation of Pure Evil...

Against all odds we can still win, on a platform for change

...743 adoring comments and counting

Forget about oil and gas shortages, if things carry on like this we'll reach Peak Tinfoil long before the hydrocarbons run out

Though, in fairness, there was a division of opinion between Loon and Anti-Loon in the comments underneath the 9/11 article

No such division of opinion underneath the Milliband piece

Everyone is fucked off with David and the Labour Party

Even members of the Labour Party

The penny has finally dropped

It would seem that calls to support the Labour Party, however wicked its actions, simply because it isn't the Conservative Party just won't cut it any more

which makes for an interesting situation

Even in their worst days, previous fucked up administrations retained at least a core of loyal, grassroots supporters

Not so this time round

So,

• Who do you vote for when you finally realise that you're living in what is effectively an unrepresentative single party state, or do you just not bother?

• What do you do when you just can't pay your monthly bills any more?

• And what are the guys who run that single party state going to come up with to preempt your decisions?

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and whilst on the subject of past fucked-up administrations, fellow blogger Merkin made a couple of amusing comments underneath the Milliband piece; including one which made reference to 'Stand Down Margaret' by The Beat

• Stand Down Margaret - released 1980

• Margaret - stands down 1990

Ah, the power of popular music

Here's a clip of ex Beat member Dave Wakeling doing an acoustic version of SDM last year. There's a little sliver of ad libbing at the end which nicely captures that sense of 'what the fuck was that all about?' now being experienced by a lot of people who worked so hard to help the current government into power

plus ca change

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Two Wings of the same Bird

I've just got back from picking up a few things at my local Tescos. One recent change which has been made to the shop layout caught my eye. The entrance to the supermarket is now flanked by mounds of big boxes of items on special, discount store style; tins of budget baked beans, canned hot dog sausages and Haribo all being sold '2 for one'

Hmmm, sacharine sweetened beans, mechanically recovered pigs’ lips in brine and artificially flavoured gelatine; all available at half price, yum yum

Tescos' highly trained food technicians had obviously put a lot of thought into providing the ingredients for a perfectly balanced, cost-effective, two course meal in these difficult times of high food inflation.

It’s little things like this which give a clue as to how shit life is becoming for people who were already stretched before their food and energy bills started leaping up by 20, 30, 40%

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But fret not, our governing political party understands the concerns of its electorate.

To see just how focused the Labour Party is on the real issues I recommend a quick peek at staunch working class warrior Moyra Tamsin Dunwoody-Kneafsey’s campaign page for this week’s Crewe and Nantwich by-election…



…where you can see that, in its attempt to turn the local parliamentary seat into an inherited fiefdom, the Labour Party is taking a strong stand against legal immigrants and underclass 'yobs' and demonising people it doesn’t like on the basis of their origins/ accidents of birth

It’s getting quite difficult now, even after exercising all the insight and empathy that I can muster, to understand why anyone still votes for this bunch of hypocritical c**ts

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The Conspiraloon Manifesto

And whilst on the subject of Troof Seekers and Conspiraloonery, last week’s defeats for our governing political party gave rise to multiple threads/ discussions all over the InterTut asking just why it is the Labour Party received such a kicking




Amusingly, if you read Labour.org you'll find yourself thinking that the number one reason was the recent smoking ban. A lot of working class Labour supporters were really f**ked off about that one

Personally, I think we’re witnessing something slightly more significant than a smokers’ revolt at work here

What we’re witnessing is the expiry of a long-outdated political fairy tale which cannot even pretend to explain how the world works any more

The fairy tale in question is the nonsense that people can be roughly split into two carefully, pre-prepared political belief systems called ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ and that all the really big stuff that goes on in the world happens more or less by accident

And, sooner, or later if you do keep pretending that stuff like the price of food or botched occupations of other peoples’ countries are essentially the product of mistakes, accidents and uncontrollable forces you come to a point where you have to shrug your shoulders and admit that you understand, and therefore can do, fuck all about fuck all

Conspiraloons on the other hand, whilst not blind to the hand of the Earth Mother and stochastic forces, do believe that a fair old bit of the shit inflicted on us is either deliberate wickedness or a by-product of deliberate wickedness; usually on the part of people who have accumulated so much money and power that they are plain bonkers




The thing is, if you are a Conspiraloon who believes that the world is being deliberately moulded to serve the interests of finance capital and The Few and that threats such as terrorism and global warming are being hyped up to assist that moulding process, you can easily knock-out an enormous manifesto of positive change that could be implemented to make the world a better place for 99.99% of us

And crucially, much, if not all of that manifesto could be formulated in a way that totally ignored Left vs. Right, divide and rule bullshit

A few examples off the top of my head…

• Cease the creation of hyper-inflationary quantities of worthless money

• Legislate against speculators fucking around with the prices of essential commodities, especially food, by implementing a simple requirement that anyone buying food, or oil, or whatever forward is actually in the food, or oil, or whatever, business.
  
  (There are plenty of operators in commodity markets who are driving future prices up but who always sell-on their holdings before they have to accept physical delivery. It really would be amusing to see someone delivering 10,000 tons of grain or rice outside the head office of a London or New York based hedge fund every once in a while)

• Withdraw forces from Iraq – the argument that we have a moral obligation to stay until things somehow get better is profoundly flawed. No-one would advocate that a wife-beater should continue living with his Mrs until they work things out. Well, no-one I know anyway

• End private monopolies over essential utilities such as water

• End public subsidy of private monopolies

• Bring in legislation and a tax regime which favours creation of mutual financial institutions
  

• Apply the same ludicrously low burden of proof and high sentencing to political and corporate corruption as is currently applied to terror suspects

• Make honesty pay. Create financial incentives for the investigation and conviction of political and corporate corruption - in the same way that people who investigate low-level benefit and tax fraud are given incentives

• Open up a few dozen new coal mines, quickly

• Apply and grant public access to the same level of surveillance and data mining applied to politicians and corporations as is applied to ordinary, law abiding citizens. Scrap any system or law which does not apply equally to citizenry and establishment

• Inclusion of ‘None of the Above’ as a candidate in all elections. Election of ‘NotA’ would automatically trigger a new election from which all previous candidates are barred

• For every new law made, scrap at least two

You could carry on all day. It would practically write itself

Alternatively, you could stick with non-Loon views and keep supporting the current political paradigm and politicians who when faced with widespread public concern about crippling inflation, the gradual meltdown of our financial system, the costly consequences of pre-emptive wars of aggression and the seemingly endless erosion of civil liberties come up with this blinding solution to all those concerns…



Sounds like the mother of all election winners to me

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Boris Johnson - quaking in his Nikes

Remember, this guy is an idiot, just like other idiots such as George Bush and Tony Blair. Everything this guy will do in office will be because he is an idiot and not because it is part of any coherent portfolio of elitist objectives.
Do not forget that, ever

There's a point I've tried to develop in a couple of posts about the recent London mayorial election which goes something like this...

Now that it is likely some Tories are going to get re-elected to high office, all sorts of allegedly Left Wing, Liberal, Libertarian and Progressive types are going to start noticing all sorts of disgraceful things which have been in plain view for the better part of 10 years or more

... not that this crowd is any better equipped to comprehend these disgraceful things than when these things were 'invisible'

Anyone who would like to participate in this magical discovery of disgraceful things which will become visible now that the Tories will start to administer them could do a lot worse than starting with this new site...

Boris Watch

...inspired presumably by the phenomenally successful Blair Watch site which managed to reduce war criminal Tony Blair's tenure as Prime Minister to a humiliatingly short ten years; through a carefully crafted strategy of effectively supporting the Nu Labour party, regardless

For their sakes I hope that the people who will comment on Boris Watch can manage to avoid espousing any thoughts or observations which sound like conspiracy theories (i.e. anything based on the premise that extremely rich people sometimes get together to fuck over less rich people) otherwise they'll end up accusing each other of being mental

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Hooray for Bojo!

So, Johnson it is then

Excellent news

Maybe now, after ten long years of having their heads up their arses, alleged Left Wingers might start to recognize fascism when they see it

Because, apparently, if the Labour party embroils this country in hegemonistic wars, turns over essential pubic services to corrupt private contractors, kisses criminal oligarch arse, trashes centuries old rights and liberties and tapes CCTV cameras to our grannies that is NOT fascism

So, maybe if the Tories take over responsibility for administering all this stuff maybe a few more people will f**king well wake up

The members of the political class, from either side of the fake divide, have a lot more in common with each other than with the people they supposedly represent but there are still are plenty of Muppets out there who still don't get it

Johnson is a Tory alright, through and through, and he is clever, ambitious and, I suspect, capable of ruthlessness

So, who are the buffoons? Johnson or the people who thought that repeatedly accusing him of being an idiot was a winning strategy?

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Ciao Ken, it's been wonderful

Immediately after the 7/7 bombings Ken Livingstone made a speech which, aside from the usual egocentric self-promotion, veered dangerously towards the statesmanlike and the humane...

"I want to say one thing specifically to the world today. This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. It was not aimed at Presidents or Prime Ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old. It was an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations for age, for class, for religion, or whatever.

That isn't an ideology, it isn't even a perverted faith - it is just an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder and we know what the objective is. They seek to divide Londoners. They seek to turn Londoners against each other."

I almost respected him for a moment

but aside from that it's been business as usual under cuddly Ken...

• money spunked on monstrously crooked public-private 'partnerships'
  
  
• that fraudulent Olympic bid
  
  
• the ridiculous congestion charge which has achieved very little aside from lining contractors' pockets and making the roads a little less congested for the rich
  
  
• outright graft and corruption, not least the supremely dodgy Brixton Base project. I can, wait for it (reaches for camera), see the now empty 'Base' out of my front window and I believe that, twat that he is, Andrew Gilligan sussed it out pretty fair and square
  
  

The Brixton money pit

• and, above all, the pure and simple arrogance of power. Anyone who has watched the contempt with which Livingstone has treated the elected assembly to which he should have been accountable should have been appalled at his behaviour

I can honestly say the time I took out of my day to vote against Livingstone yesterday was one of the most rewarding ways I have found to spend fifteen minutes of my life

even my local (Labour) MP thinks Ken's a twunt

this 'at least Labour's better than the Tories' crap doesn't wash any more, even if it ever did, which I doubt very much.

In many, many ways, the current shower of bastards have managed to outshine even Thatchler

The Labour party died and was resurrected as a zombie puppet fifteen or more years ago and it's about time a few more people realised that

Bye bye Ken. It's looking like (fingers crossed) you're unemployed now but something tells me that you won't be short of a bob or two

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and in related news, here's that clip of Richard Littlejohn bitchslapping that most supremely annoying of Champagne Socialists/ Limousine Liberals Polly Toynbee - as great an enemy of ordinary people as any Tory grandee or fascistic rabble rouser...



When it comes to a toss-up between the likes of Littlejohn or Toynbee I definitely choose neither

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A spankingly good track

- link inspired by a couple of comments underneath this post, including a link to this article


NB probably not a work friendly link - unless you happen to work in Mistress Mavis' House of Pain, or the House of Commons

and if any politicians, senior civil servants or captains of industry bump into this post whilst seaching for this sort of service please feel free to drop me a line - I, and quite a few people I know, would be more than willing to give you a slapping free of charge

but no kissing afterwards

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edit: and thanks to Lord Patel for, in the process of comparing Gordon Queeg with Lt Cmdr Queeg, reminding me of how just good a film The Caine Mutiny is - with two or three absolutely stand-out scenes; including Humphrey Bogart doing this very credible Gordon Queeg impression...





the scene featuring the 'josé ferrer figure, realising too late the real villains of the piece and his unwitting complicity' is absolutely knockout as well but, sadly, absent from Gootube

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Stop the War … maybe next year, eh?

A few more pictures from last Saturday’s Stop the War march, nothing special…

Those interesting chaps from Neturei Karta modeling their latest Springtime leisureware collection

a somewhat dazed and confused Walter Wolfgang (Britain's oldest terror suspect?) wandering around in the mistaken belief that things will get soooo much better once his beloved Labour Party is in government

There’s a pretty accurate write-up of the feel of the event, complete with some typically distractive and grindingly tedious Left-wing infighting about George Galloway’s alleged homophobia in the comment section, over here

One of the biggest downers of the march was witnessing just how entwined Man Made Global Warming has become with Left Wing inactivism. The perverse belief that sidelining the very long list of genuine, proven crimes against the environment and subordinating them to one great big steaming pile of CO2 bullshit is somehow against multinational corporate interests appears to be depressingly widespread amongst political inactivists.

On the plus side, Lord Patel and some of his staff were attendance; dispensing stock market tips and signed photographs to the adoring masses. To be honest, that's the only reason why I bothered attending, even merely as a spectator

A few marches back, whilst listening to that hypocritical old fucker Tony Benn spouting away, I was struck by a powerful sense of déjà vu. I realised that I had stood in virtually the exact same spot in Trafalgar Square, listening to the same hypocritical old fucker spouting exactly the same old stuff, twenty-five years before

Only twenty-five years ago the people listening to that old fucker spout weren’t penned-in, monitored and manipulated to anything like the degree they are today

I’ve said this repeatedly to anyone who will listen to me but the only demonstration that came anywhere near to effecting change in government policy since 1997 has been the Fuel Protest of 2000; specifically because it featured an element of passive resistance

None of the Stop the War demonstrations, even the monster march before the invasion of Iraq, came anywhere near attempting anything like what was achieved by the fuel protestors

Coming down to London, noncing around with a placard for a few hours and then going home in time for tea and Pop Idol ain’t going to change anything. Viscount Tony and his pals know that but for some peculiar reason they keep on participating and supporting the same old ineffective rituals year after year

"You've all done very well. Now fuck off home and don't be a nuisance to anyone"

That’s not to say that the people who participate in those rituals are under any illusions. The handful of protesters I spoke with on Saturday acknowledged the impotence of what they were doing but participate anyway on the basis that it is at least something.

I’m not knocking their intentions but until things get a lot worse, people outside of the traditional, controlled Left-wing get involved and some pro-democracy (sic.) oligarch lays in a decent sound system and some nibbles so that people can stand their ground for a few days, these marches ain’t going to change dick

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You know when you've been Tangoed

So, Peter Hain has finally come a cropper for being (allegedly) a corrupt fucker

Whoopee feckin do

Peter Hain

Nasty Orangey Thing

For a while towards the end of last year there was just the slightest possibility that people's attention would focus not on corrupt, and essentially expendable, politicians but the people and interests who do the corrupting

Well, it was only a slight possibility

So, instead, let's just sit back and watch the journo-political whores employed to fob us all off with bullcrap get stuck into some good old-fashioned 'Left' vs 'Right', false choice party politics whilst the serious business of running the country for the benefit of the deserving few carries on as usual

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And I wouldn't trust the supposedly anti-establishment bloggers who spearheaded the controlled demolition of Peter Hain for a second - they're very careful about what they say, and what they allow commentators to say, and are clearly aware that they can only go so far...

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The illustrated adventures of Vince Cable

Thanks to anon for leaving me a link to a transcript of last night’s House of Commons debate on the Northern Rock farrago

It’s a long read but made easier by the cute little pictures of the participants which give the transcript a nice comic book – photostory kind of vibe. The pictures are also just the right size for prodding angrily with your forefinger

Vince Cable was, obviously, on form...


Taxpayers are already committed to the hilt; they have already advanced staggering sums. In normal circumstances, I would not dream of recommending my solution, but we are in an extremity—and in an extremity we have to look at the options. The one that I propose is the least undesirable; I shall come to the reasons for that.


...as were most of the other elected representatives who spoke – greasy, self-serving, deceitful little shits right down to virtually the last man and woman.

A selection of some of my favourite greasy, self-serving, deceitful contributions from the session…



Jim Cousins, Labour

I come back to this point. One of the real skills built up by Northern Rock's workers is making mortgage lending available to the lower end of the income scale and making those mortgages work in a sustainable way. So far, the published record indicates that the bank has been very successful in doing that. That set of skills is of enormous value to our current housing market and it would be sensible not to downgrade those skills and destroy that reputation, which would make that work impossible.



Peter Atkinson, Conservative

The hon. Gentleman has been dreadfully dismissive of the small shareholders, of whom there are 140,000. Yes, some acquired their shares on demutualisation and have been counting them as their savings for retirement. Many others, including people in my constituency, bought small quantities of shares because they wanted to support a good local business. They are the ones who will suffer. They should not be dismissed and put out of the picture.



Doug Henderson, Labour

I understand theoretically some of the points that the hon. Gentleman is making, and I have read the motion. Is he aware that Northern Rock employees do not want nationalisation? If it is difficult now to sell the business as a going concern, they wonder how much more difficult it will be to do so in future. The small shareholders, some of whom I see in the Gallery, oppose nationalisation because they would lose any value that they have.



Kevan Jones, Labour

Is the hon. Gentleman at one with the leader of the Liberal Democrats on Newcastle city council who, along with the majority of elected politicians in the north-east, supports efforts to get a solution for Northern Rock? Is he not in danger today, with the emotive language that he uses, of running down the company and making matters worse?


Plus one strange exchange where someone actually seemed to be trying to suggest something constructive for a moment...


David Drew, Labour

I, for one, congratulate the hon. Gentleman on calling the debate. Did he consider another option—the possibility of remutualising Northern Rock? Some of us feel strongly that one of the great problems of demutualisation is that it was predictable that some companies, because of the nature of the marketplace in which they operate, would overstretch themselves. Is it not time we looked at the strength of mutuals again?

Vincent Cable, Liberal Democrat

That is a helpful intervention, with which I have a great deal of sympathy. I used to be involved in an organisation called Save Our Building Societies, which campaigned against the original demutualisation of Northern Rock for precisely that reason. After a period of temporary public ownership, that might be one of the options that appear viable, but rushing into a sale now would preclude it. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right.


…and then everyone went back to the serious business of being greasy, self-serving, deceitful little shits

So, remember boys and girls, Northern Rock is a superbly managed financial institution which is only suffering problems because of a) something which happened in America and b) the acting Leader of the Lib Dems, one of the handful of apparently sane and honest people in the House, talking it down all the time. A kindly, bearded and jovial man in a big balloon is shortly going to make everything alright again in time for Christmas

"Look! It's Richard Branson - He'll save us!!"

• The Virgin bid is bollocks

• As the result of a special recipe secret blend of incompetence, corruption and outright fraud, Northern Rock is going down

• Other banks and businesses are also going down

• It is going to hurt

• A lot

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Spicy Adventure Stories

Here's a little something that's doing the rounds at the moment...

See anyone familiar?

It looks genuine enough and consistent with the rest of the 70 year old Spicy Adventure Stories back catalog - and to be honest I don't really care if it's fake or not


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And in other news today, Hypno-Teddy is going from strength to strength and replicas are now available on ebay

Well, when I say replicas, all someone has done is listed their teddy as being called Mohamed and a couple of dozen people have been stupid enough to bid it up to one hundred and seventy quid...



Fucking woeful

edit: 832 quid now...

edit: now withdrawn

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Good Quotes from Good Movies #427

"All this anarchy for FIVE POXY GRAND!!"

(taken from a comment underneath Matthew Parris' article about this week's shenanigans - and it's about time The Long Good Friday got a look in; what with Northern Rock, those missing disks and the David Abrahams thing all taking place in the North East of England all the movie references being made have been 'Get Carter this' and bloody 'Get Carter that'...)

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Taken from my outbox today...

A couple of extracts from emails I've sent to some fellow Conspiracy Loons over the course of the day in the context of the frankly remarkable developments arising from the David Abrahams story. Well, it saves writing it all out again...


"...The current Labour sleaze crisis is even more significant than most people have yet realised and if it isn't closed down pretty damned quick it's going to shine a light on a hidden world that only Conspiraloons have dreamt of. There's a good chance one of the Establishment's bagmen has been exposed for all the world see. The Iraq War? The War on Terror? The debt mountain and f*cked up banking system? We are closer to public exposure of some of the answers as to how all these things came about than we ever have been

Given all that, it's not surprising that the blogging 'Commentariat' (promoted by The Guardian and Julia Hobsbawm's (a name well worth googling) very Common Purpose feeling 'Editorial Intelligence'), as well as the Alex Jones' of this world, are somewhat at a loss for words. They're either too compromised or too f*cking stupid to comprehend what's going on. They simply don't have the ideological tools to make sense of the implications

Sad to say, it's the right wing libertarians that are running with this - along with all the distasteful baggage that goes with it..."


and to another Loon...


"(Is there) Something nasty in the woodpile? Certainly, and I'm still trying to figure out if Brown's unprecedented catalog of closely spaced woes really is just a case of coincidental timing, the result of some kind of tipping point having been naturally reached, or half a dozen shady blokes puffing on cigars in a room somewhere deciding that their interests are best served somehow by imploding the whole f*cking shambles..."

"Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the Conspiraloon™"

It's been a good week for us Loons so far but, sad to say, a good week for Loons invariably involves shocking or ghastly events that shake people out of their complacent slumber. So it's not exactly something to gloat over

nor is the fact that I fully expect plenty more good weeks for Loons in the not too distant future...

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People who should avoid going for long walks in the woods #438 - David Abrahams

David Abrahams

For anyone keen to keep an eye on latest developments in the controlled demolition of the UK government (Lord Patel and, dare I say it, Paul Staines and his pack of rabid commentators seem to be doing a pretty good job on that front at the moment) may I recommend spending a couple of minutes brushing up on how politics in the US works; particularly the role played by Political Action Committees (PACs) and one PAC in particular. There's an outside chance that it might prove to be relevant here

And no, I don't think Hitler was cool

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A cracking week for Coincidence Theorists™ who don't ask too many questions

Unless you’re one of those insane Coincidence Theorists™ it is becoming increasingly hard to believe that we in the UK are not witnessing some kind of deliberate, controlled demolition of our current government

And today’s entirely coincidentally occurring disaster for our governing political party, in a seemingly endless chain of coincidentally occurring disasters, is the resignation of the Labour Party general secretary, Peter Watt

Apparently, he saw nothing illegal in someone circumventing political donation disclosure laws by making political donations in someone else’s name

Now the thing is, whilst it is admittedly early days for the mainstream media’s coverage of this particular scandal, it is already pretty clear that there are a couple of questions our corporate press have little appetite for asking...

• Why did the donor in question, David Abrahams, wish to hide his identity?

David Abrahams

• What was he after and did he get it? (I suspect that establishment of a UK Sharia State can be safely struck off the list of possible answers)
  

Father Abraham

... speaking for myself, I won’t be holding my breath waiting for someone in the mainstream to start asking those questions

Colonel Abrams

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Le Morte d'Alistair

"The Phisher King or the Wounded King figures in Arthurian legend as the latest in a line charged with keeping the Holy Grail. Versions of his story vary widely, but he is always wounded in the legs or groin, and incapable of moving on his own. When he is injured, his kingdom suffers as he does, his impotence affecting the fertility of the land and reducing it to a barren Wasteland. Little is left for him to do but phish in the river near his castle Corbenic. Knights travel from many lands to heal the Phisher King but only the chosen can accomplish the feat..."

(flagrant counter-rip from LWTC24/7's blog)

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The Common Enemy revisited - pt2

and back to Common Purpose for a moment...

Unlike the ‘Little Englanders’ I referred to in my earlier post I personally doubt very much if an organisation like Common Purpose could ever be the all powerful demon they think it to be

What it could very easily be is part of that network of unaccountable, droid-nurturing lobby groups and think thanks which now envelops the political process and has replaced ideology and conviction with 'glittering generalities'

I have a particularly big problem with the Fascistic (that word again) blurring of the conceptual lines between a public service such as the police or prison service and privately owned companies - a blurring process which organisations like Common Purpose help to promote

Maybe I am prisoner of my personal political ideology but I believe that there is a big difference between running a supermarket and running a police force

There are some services that are arguably best run as monopolies – water supply is the first that comes to mind. Unless that is someone can make a compelling case for laying two competing sets of pipes in our towns and cities

And giving monopolies on essential services over to private ownership is rarely a good idea

There are other services which potentially could compete with each other but it is probably best if they don’t – I’d suggest that having two different police forces or armies competing with each other on the high street would be insane

Another point to consider is that many of our public services exist because we, as citizens, give up our rights to act for ourselves on the understanding that certain activities, such as dispensing justice, might be better achieved collectively

"You know I am no stranger. I know rules are a bore. But just to keep you from danger I am the Law"

But what happens when the politicians we have given up our freedom of action to hand those powers over to privately controlled corporations?

Is a policeman still a public servant if he works for a privately controlled company?

...or thinks, acts and talks like he's working for a privately controlled company?

Would that make someone like Jean Charles de Menezes a dissatisfied customer?




Mentioning JCdM is not quite as gratuitous as it might seem, as the person who gave the order for him to be shot in the face is a Common Purpose graduate

And no, I am not implying that Common Purpose style leadership training turns people in psycho killers but if I had been the person who paid for that particular graduate’s leadership course I’d be looking for my money back...




That’s one story that hasn’t made it’s way onto the Common Purpose graduate case history webpage

It makes much more sense to think about these kind of leadership courses not so much as being about training as being part of a selection process. You can’t turn someone into a leader in a couple of weeks. You can however identify the kind of people your system of control is based on and equip them with the language they need to be identifiable to each other

... a way of looking at things which can help make sense of the fact that the person in command of the Stockwell operation was promoted to even higher office shortly after presiding over what was, even by official accounts, a murderous fuck up

Competence and preferment do not necessarily go hand in hand in our system of governance. There are other qualities much higher on the list of selection criteria

Given the increased blurring of the distinction between public service and private enterprise, it seems only appropriate that the only court case to be heard as the result of JCdM’s execution is being held under Health and Safety at work legislation. Even though I doubt very much if anyone will be held accountable as a result of the case it has at least forced the papers to report a curious incident which happened immediately after JCdM was shot...




Aside from a press statement issued by the driver’s union the following day, the news that the police (sic.) chased the train driver down a tunnel and jammed a gun in his face has not been investigated by any of the mainstream media. Come to think of I don't even think the press release was reported at the time

The significance of this story is, to my mind anyway, that if the police had followed an alleged suspect suicide bomber all the way from his home to Stockwell station why on earth would they feel the need to start running around pointing guns at other people, especially the driver of the fucking train?

And as for the $64,000 question – ‘Why did the police think a guy in thin clothing, carrying no bags, was a suicide bomber in the first place?’ – well, forget it…

The official story continues to make no sense – big time



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PS - The Antagonist appears to be in the process of resuscitating 'Anything that defies my sense of reason' - a blog that has frequently touched on the events of July 2005 and their consequences, as well as all sorts of other bits and bobs. I'm glad to see it breathing again


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The Common Enemy revisited - pt1

Just to clarify a couple of points from that last post...

My suggestion that people with contrasting ’Left’ and ‘Right’ Wing views might have a common enemy and their own common purpose is not the same thing as suggesting that racism, xenophobia or Hate in general is something that people can overlook.

However, I do find it fascinating how people’s opposition to something like expansion of the role of the EU for example is framed and shaped by their political views

• Those with right-leaning beliefs who oppose the EU may do so on the basis that it impinges on national sovereignty

• Those with left leaning beliefs who oppose the EU may do so on the basis that it is undemocratic and initiatives such as a common currency make it much easier for corporations to shift capital and jobs from place to place, playing one group of workers against the other

The underlying causes for their rejection of the EU as it stands are essentially very similar – a fear of unrepresentative elitist hegemony – but that shared concern is obscured by some of the baggage associated with Left and Ring Wing belief systems

…and the language people use

When I think about the possible negative impact of the EU my concern is that it may become a fully Fascist entity - a seamless integration of industry and government, controlled by an unaccountable few

Yet other people, more Right Wing people, chuck terms like ‘Communist’ and ‘Marxist’ around when talking about the EU

So, is the EU really all things to all people - Communist, Marxist and Fascist - or is the language we use letting us down?

I am not discounting the fact that there are fundamental differences between people with Left and Right Wing views of how the world should work but I do believe that flexibility of thought is constrained by mass media promotion of restrictive terminology and pre-packaged ideology

I also believe that this is deliberate

Maybe I’ve read Orwell too many times

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The Common Enemy

Further to my previous post about Islamo-Fascist Awareness week and the traditional anti-Muslim knees up being planned in London on 26th October…

One of the reasons why the organisers of the demonstration selected the 26th was to coincide with a rally calling for a referendum of the proposed EU treaty/ Constitution the following day

The implication being that they anticipate a large overlap of those against further EU integration and those who believe that Muslims are taking over the country

Because, as everyone knows, the EU is completely controlled by militant jihadists

Over the weekend, someone very thoughtfully sent me a link to a two hour long film on google video of someone in a church hall making a presentation about how the EU is attacking UK society from within via an entity called ‘Common Purpose’...





Common Purpose is a peculiar wee organisation which provides what it calls 'leadership-training' courses to select individuals within the private and public sector. It also offers extensive networking opportunities to its ‘Graduates’ after their training.

From what little I’ve been able to pick up from the bland yet creepy Common Purpose website and other little snippets I’ve encountered here and there, Common Purpose gives off a vibe of some kind of cross between Scientology, EST therapy, the Stepford Bureaucrats and the Masons

Leadership Training selection process...

Which I would, under other circumstances, find amusing, except for the fact that literally thousands of people from the police, the armed services, the education service, local government, national government, the NHS, and the prison service have all been subject to Common Purpose indoctrination at public expense

And yet hardly anyone has heard of Common Purpose

Common Purpose is also, by its own admission, actively selecting children it judges most likely to be future leaders and giving them a spot of training too

Well, that’s not sinister at all




Common Purpose is part of a much wider malaise and a component of an interlocked network of dodgy think tanks, quangos, lobby groups, and consultancies, populated by the kind of bloodless, sociopathic droids who now dominate our political parties and public sector. I don’t know whether they were born or made but they’re a bunch of fuckers wherever they came from.

Now the problem with the video about Common Purpose I was given the link to and have, in turn, pasted into this post is that the person making the presentation and the people watching it are just a teensy weensy bit, er, reactionary

OK, make that extremely reactionary

Which means that even though quite a lot of decent and informative research is contained within the presentation the conclusions that people in the film draw from that research are shaped by some pretty ropey world views

And this, for me, is the tricky thing. When presented with evidence of the existence of murky, unaccountable and powerful organisations exercising malign influence on our lives, independent Right Wing thinkers will start talking about Marxist conspiracies. Yet, when presented with exactly the same evidence, independent Left Wing thinkers will start talking about Fascist conspiracies

My own take is that Left and Right Wing independent thinkers are hampered by their existing terminology and are therefore both wrong. But, in a way, they’re both correct and they could achieve much if they would look past their differences and realise that they have a Common Enemy in organisations such as Common Purpose and, more to the point, the elitist bastards behind them. If those bastards win we're all fucked - Left and Right Wing alike


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PS As an aside, the last time I posted about Common Purpose, and the equally creepy Tavistock Institute, was back in May. The thread of comments underneath that post catalysed the creation of the Conspiraloon™ Alliance which is destined to one day eat Common Purpose for breakfast and ask for seconds, MuahahahHAAAAA!!!

PPS Conspiraloon™ Thought for the Day (courtesy of JD)...

"both the left wing and the right wing are flapped by - and attached to - the same bird, which unfortunately continues to fly on its chosen course - and we continue to blame its flight upon one of the wings, when blame should be apportioned to a limited degree to both wings, and in particular to the supporting frame to which they are secured, and without which neither would exist"

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