Craig Murray's Blog, page 101

Vote John Hemming in Birmingham Yardley

My general advice for English voters has been to vote for the candidate most likely to beat the Tory. In Birmingham Yardley it is not easy to be certain whether that is the Labour or Lib Dem, but there are a raft of other reasons to vote for John Hemming over Jess Phillips.

Firstly, in an extremely strong field, Jess Phillips has struck me as perhaps the most objectionable person in parliament. She has attempted to build a career out of a combination of extreme egotism, constant claims of victimhood, and being the most reliable source for the media of the most extremely phrased attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, her own party leader. Phillips is the vacuity of modern politics exposed, a politician for the Instagram generation.

I quite understand that Jeremy Corbyn wishes the largest possible Labour vote, to show that radical politics are not as electorally unpopular as the media claims. But I suspect the loss of Jess Phillips’ seat is something to which he could secretly reconcile himself.

I have a lot of time for John Hemming, the LibDem MP defeated by Phillips in 2015. Formerly one of the few genuinely free spirits in parliament, Hemming is a strong supporter of Palestine. In October 2014 he voted in parliament to recognise a Palestinian state. He was one of 17 MPs – together with Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott and Caroline Lucas – who signed a letter calling for an arms embargo on Israel. He has chaired meetings for Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine on IDF atrocities and Palestinian human rights. Jess Phillips, by contrast, is a militant supporter of Israel.

John Hemming has also appeared alongside Respect at anti-EDL meetings. He is a doughty campaigner against the ultra-wealthy’s use of libel laws and super-injunctions. He has also continued a long campaign to help those suffering from the abuses of secrecy in family courts.

I should make a disclosure here. When I was sacked by Jack Straw over my opposition to torture and extraordinary rendition, John Hemming, whom I scarcely knew, contacted me to see if I needed employment and/or financial support. (I make no bones about it, Hemming is very wealthy from IT businesses). I did not accept his kind offers, but take them as part of the measure of the man.

I do hope anybody reading this in Birmingham Yardley will support John Hemming. That hope embraces all the people of the constituency, though I hope especially that members of the Islamic community will read what I have written, consider its implications, and withdraw any support for Jess Phillips. If anybody has any friends or family in the constituency, ring them up and tell them to support John. Forward them this. Any mobile activists wishing to try to put a good man in parliament, could do much worse than head to Birmingham Yardley to put in a stint.

Birmingham Yardley 2015

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A Duty to Resist Fascism

I grant you that a choice between a neo-liberal and a fascist is extremely unpleasant. For ordinary people to vote to dismantle the protections against rampant capitalism for which their ancestors struggled, is pretty horrible.

But even that is not quite as horrible as becoming a Nazi. And if you are from an ethnic minority you have to resist or become a victim.

In France there is not actually a choice for anybody with the remotest claim to human decency. Do not sit on your hands while down the street they pull on their jackboots. Get out and vote for Macron. It is a duty to humanity.

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Beating the Mainstream Propaganda

My Ferguslie Park article is currently being read by 20,000 people per hour, excluding bots. This is obviously putting a huge strain on our resources, so forgive any slow loading. If you are able to take any of the load by copying and posting it elsewhere I would be grateful; that includes major sites, but everything helps. All my blog is always free to copy and re-use.

The good news is that we are finally reaching a stage where the people’s media can start to compete on numbers with the media barons and the state narrative. Here are 20 new readers arriving during a random 5 seconds I just snapped.

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That Astonishing Tory Ferguslie Park Super Triumph

A Google news search returns 5,240 results for “Ferguslie Park” over the last 24 hours. As compared to 0 mentions in the previous 24 hours.

The media have, with an incredible level of unanimity, seized upon a Tory being elected to represent Ferguslie Park, “the most deprived area of Scotland”, as the leading evidence of a Tory resurgence into areas of Scotland “they could not previously venture into”. I have heard this recounted on every available broadcast platform this evening.

I have two bits of news for the unionist media. Firstly, Ferguslie Park is in Paisley. Most of you think it is in Glasgow. Secondly there is no ward called Ferguslie Park. There is a place called Ferguslie Park, and it is less than half of a ward called Paisley Northwest. Now here is the result of that stunning Tory super-victory amazing spectacular miraculous shocking earth-shattering mould-breaking Tory triumph in Paisley Northwest.

My, how the ground shook. In future years, everybody will recall just exactly where they were at the moment the Conservatives polled 13% in Paisley North West, when that vast uprising of 657 voters swept their candidate to victory on the 10th set of transfers into the fourth available slot in a multi-member constituency.

Now, this will come as a shock to some people. Paisley North West is not a dreadful slum, and contains some distinctly prosperous areas. Much of the ward looks like this.

Here are some statistics for the entire ward.

65% of households in Paisley North West are owner occupied

67% of the population of Paisley North West are employed, self employed or full time students

5.1% of the population of Paisley North West are unemployed

23% of the population of Paisley North West are pensioners

4.9% are housewives/husbands/carers or not in the labour force

In a local election poll with a low turnout, there is a disproportionately high turnout from pensioners and from the wealthier districts. Very few indeed of those measly 657 Tory votes came from the Ferguslie Park estate.

The real story is that in a ward with 65% owner-occupiers and 67% economically active, the Tories could still only manage a measly 13% of the vote. That the large majority of £350,000 owner occupiers do not vote Tory. The real story is that the SNP took 44% to the Tories 13%. But no, the march of Ruth’s 13%ers has apparently changed the course of history. As Tom Robinson once sang, “It’s there in the papers, must be the truth”.

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Scots Tories Below 24% of the Vote

Projecting the swings from 62 varied wards across Scotland I estimate the Scottish Tory vote share at a mere 23.3%. So the BBC narrative about huge Scottish Tory triumph is total nonsense. Any foreign observer would be stunned by a state media, the BBC, that hails Ruth Davidson’s 23% as a massive triumph and decries Jeremy Corbyn’s UK 28% as the greatest disaster in political history.

It is really hard for the media to explain away Ruth’s 23% in Scotland in terms of the narrative they have been spreading so assiduously about “Ruth more popular than Nicola” and “Massive Tory surge”. So they have adopted a fascinating tactic. Not one media outlet anywhere has to date given a figure for the Scottish vote share.

The BBC could give you the actual definitive Scottish vote share at the push of a button. But they won’t.

Because not only does the Tory performance make a nonsense of the propaganda they continue to pump out non-stop, but there is another interesting possibility. While the Tories won a few more seats than Labour, my projection has Labour ahead of the Tories in Scotland in vote share on 23.4% to 23.3%. My figures are only a projection and I would put a margin of error of about 1.5% on each of those figures, but it is an intriguing possibility.

The BBC Pacific Quay propaganda machine prefers just to work on seat gains, and is doing something absolutely astonishing – continually saying the SNP were net losers when in fact they were net gainers. There are no more seats in total than there were in 2012, and today the SNP have more seats than they had then. Yet the BBC are claiming that the SNP were net losers due to adjusting for boundary changes, an obvious nonsense. Even the Guardian, Times and Telegraph are all showing the SNP with net gains.

But that would not suit the relentless BBC propaganda, and they are sticking with a straight lie about SNP losses and that, as the presenter on BBC News said yet even again as I typed this sentence, “The SNP are now losing momentum and going backwards”. Iain Macwhirter is currently being interviewed and he has been asked six questions by the BBC presenter, every single one of which is about how fantastically the Tories are doing in Scotland. MacWhirter said that Ruth Davidson is doing “fantastically”, so he earned his BBC fee.

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Which is the Charlatan?

UPDATE I calculate Tory vote share in Scotland on results so far as 26%. The BBC is proclaiming this as a triumph and ringing endorsement for Ruth Davidson, and final refutation of Independence. I calculate Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour UK wide vote share so far as 28%. This is abject failure and a total rejection of Labour, according to the BBC. How 26% is a great triumph, and 28% an abject defeat, no doubt the current GCHQ shift will explain below.

Unlike England and Wales, the Scottish elections are on the proportional STV system. With their Scottish 26%, the Tories are picking up some gains in third or fourth place in multi-member wards. Under the English FPTP system, the Tories would have gained almost nothing in Scotland.

Interestingly nowhere on the BBC news or website can I find any indication of Scottish vote share, only UK vote share. But of course if the BBC gave the Tory Scottish vote share it would rather spoil the Tory triumph narrative.

Oh, and we now know it is YouGove who are the charlatans.

ORIGINAL POST I do like simple binary possibilities, they are much less hard work than complex thought. Today we have one. By tea-time we will know which of two possibilities is correct.

Possibility a) Craig Murray is a deluded old fool who has no understanding of politics and is totally out of touch with the people of Scotland

Possibility b) YouGove are a bunch of charlatans who produce polling about Scotland deliberately designed to exaggerate the success of unionists and Tories, in order to provide pegs for the media to hang Tory propaganda and to attract the weak-minded to the “winning” position.

YouGove’s Scottish polling figures continually produce results which are to me impossible, showing Scotland is a nation enamoured of the Conservatives.

The Scottish component of Today’s YouGove opinion poll for the Times has

Scotland

SNP 40%

Conservative 37%

Labour 15%

Lib Dem 6%

Green 1%

Fortunately yesterday every local council in Scotland had an election, and we shall soon start to see results. So am I a fool or are YouGove charlatans? Will the Tories get 37%? Will the unionist parties combined get 58%?

On a technical note, yes that poll has a fairly small Scottish subsample of 209. But it is one of a series in which YouGove has consistently produced much higher figures for Tories in Scotland, and much lower figures for the SNP in Scotland, than other pollsters. For example three days ago the Scottish element of the latest Panelbase poll had the Tories on 19%.

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Very Peculiar Timing

The Daily Mail reports:

Although meetings involving the entire royal household are occasionally called, the way this has been done at the eleventh hour is highly unusual

All news sources, including the BBC, reported this morning’s meeting of the Royal Household as an “emergency meeting”. Royal lackeys had been rushed overnight from Scotland, Norfolk and the Isle of Wight. What was the emergency?

Prince Philip is going to retire in seven months time.

Now I think the Prince is wonderful for his age. I have held lengthy conversations with him, and rather like him (read The Catholic Orangemen of Togo for details). And I hope he enjoys his retirement, indeed to the extent that I hope his family have the apparently terribly stresses of being royal and owning lots of palaces, removed from all of them completely.

But I cannot for the life of me see how this constituted an “emergency”. What this timing does of course is ensure a constant stream of monarchist claptrap and forelock-tugging on all broadcast media all of local election day, complete with repeated filmed message from our glorious strong and stable leader. Local election purdah means there is no interruption to this monstrous intrusion into the general election campaign.

Now we Scots are a bit sceptical about all this. It was not immediately obvious why the announcement of a royal not yet visible pregnancy had to be made just before the independence referendum vote. There appears to be something of a coincidence between major royal announcements and popular votes.

It is also fascinating that Sky News are putting such a Scottish spin on this. Earlier we had a risible old loyal Glasgow councillor spouting rubbish. We just had vox pops outside Holyrood House. Astonishingly for Scotland, Sky News have not managed to find a single republican. They have not felt the need to wander round Sandringham or Osborne House. Their effort is very Scottish. Is anything happening today in Scotland for which you might want to motivate the Orange Order? Oh yes…

The key point about this “emergency” of course is that the decision to make this announcement now was taken after the election was called. May called on the Queen yesterday and there will have been contact between No.10 and the Palace this last week to set that up.

It was not the only thing they were setting up.

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Boke Early and Boke Often

Local elections today! It is important to put a spoke in the wheel of the bandwagon of hype that we have all become Tories. In England and Wales vote for whoever has the best local chance of beating the Tory.

In Scotland vote until you boke. It’s an STV election so use all of your preferences and put the Tory last (or make the Tory or Tories the only ones you don’t rank). I am happy to say there is no disagreement among Scottish independence supporters on how to approach this. Here is an explanation by James Kelly, the brightest star of the psephological firmament.

It would be nice to think that Labour Party supporters would reciprocate and also place the Tories last, but all the signs are that in Scotland these elections will again confirm that the unionists are all but different shades of Tory, and will transfer between one another. Nonetheless derailing the Tories is the pressing need of the moment, so get down that polling station now!

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Theresa May Goes the Full Farage

Theresa May’s breathtaking claim that the EU is interfering in the general election has moved the Brexit negotiations to a whole new level of confrontation. Those who think that international negotiations on future trade relations are best conducted in an atmosphere of extreme mutual hostility, are nonsensical.

Good deals come from good relationships.

It is also extraordinary that May appears to be staking out her appeal exclusively on UKIP territory. I am quite sure she is following her own, natural, very right wing instincts. But by taking this aggressively right wing position, she is opening up a flank to the Liberal Democrats and severely endangering her prospects in Scotland, where UKIP never achieved anything like the traction it did in England. She also seems to be calculating that the ordinary Brexit voters take an extreme view and would welcome an absolute dust-up with the EU, irrespective of its long term effects on the UK.

Doubtless all of this was comprehensively polled and focus grouped, but I suspect she has miscalculated on a great many levels.

Now let us examine the truth of May’s claims of EU interference in a British election – a very serious charge indeed. These are May’s words today, presumably very carefully considered.

The European Commission’s negotiating stance has hardened. Threats against Britain have been issued by European politicians and officials. All of these acts have been deliberately timed to affect the result of the general election which will take place on 8 June.

Let us examine these claims. Firstly she says that the European Commission’s negotiating stance has hardened. But it has not. The European Council has just adopted the negotiating positions, which are precisely the same ones circulated by Donald Tusk before May announced the election. So those positions have not hardened. The Commission has today made plain that the financial settlement and rights for EU residents will have to be broadly settled before trade negotiations start. But again that was precisely their position before the election was announced.

So what has happened since the election was called which is new? Well, the European Council has affirmed that if, in accordance with the provisions of the Good Friday agreement, Ireland were to unite, the expanded Republic of Ireland would remain in the EU. But that is not a “negotiating stance” it is purely a reiteration of the pre-existing legal position in regard to the Good Friday Agreement.

Two things have arguably changed. An estimate of 100 billion euros has been put unofficially on the UK’s residual obligations, which is higher than previous estimates, but as this is a matter of collation of innumerable programme agreements different estimates are bound to emerge. As the Commission very reasonably pointed out today – while refusing to endorse the 100 million estimate – the residual obligations will depend on the date of actual Brexit, as yet unknown. The only real new point is the Commission’s legal claim that the UK is not entitled to a share of EU fixed assets. But the timing of this was dictated by a claim by Boris Johnson, so it was hardly an interference in the election.

So the alleged hardening of the Commission’s negotiating positions is a fiction. It simply does not exist.

May then says that threats have been made against the UK. I can find nothing that remotely constitutes a threat. To state that the trading position of a non-member must necessarily be weaker than the trading position of a member is not a threat, it is a statement of the obvious. May’s perception of threats is a paranoid delusion.

Finally, she claims that all this has been timed to affect the result of the general election. That is the weirdest claim of all.

The Downing St dinner at which May made a fool of herself was an initiative by May. She issued the invitation and she dictated the timing. It was not vicious foreign enemies who are all out to get her. She may be forgiven for being aggrieved that the poor opinions of her were leaked to the press. But anyone who knows anything about the EU knows that everything leaks, all the time. In general it is a very open institution. The Commission has in any case to report progress in the negotiations regularly to the European Parliament.

The other recent events – the European Council summit and the approval of the negotiating stance by the European Parliament – were all on schedules decided before May announced the election. So it was impossible that they were “deliberately timed to affect the result of the general election”, when nobody knew there was a general election at the point the timings were decided. The Council, Parliament and Commission press briefings which were set in train by these events were all absolutely routine and in no sense specially timed or orchestrated.

May’s attack on the EU is therefore demonstrably and indisputably untrue. All the events she alludes to happened either on dates agreed before the election was announced, or on dates decided by herself. It is an impossibility for them to have been timed to influence the election.

Having disposed of May’s cataclysmic rant, here is an interesting thought. From all round the country, TV news has been showing me constantly for days placards bearing Theresa May’s name but no mention of any political party. These placards therefore cannot count as national party advertising as they advertise no party. So they must count against May’s personal candidate spending limit in Maidenhead, where they are beamed wherever the placards may be held up, plainly doing no function other than to promote May personally as a candidate.

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Highland Clearances – Zielsdorfs Deported Tomorrow

The Zielsdorf family will be deported by the UK Home Office tomorrow, in an act of pointless Tory cruelty that enforces immigration regulations designed for SE England and totally unsuited to the needs of the Highlands. Laggan village store is now closed down.

We called on the Zielsdorf family again two months ago. Having been unable to find anybody else to buy and run the business in Laggan for a sum which would anywhere near clear their investment, they literally have no home to go to in Canada. Jason is hoping to buy an old bus for them to live in. Yes, a bus. They are however a resilient and cheerful family buoyed by their religious faith.

You can find worse acts of Tory cruelty – the cutting of benefits to the terminally ill deemed able to work a few more weeks, for example. But it is hard to conceive of an act of Tory cruelty which is more absolutely pointless than the deportation of the Zielsdorfs. Laggan loses its store, they lose their home and living, and the store/cafe’s employee loses their job. Not to mention the Tory fantasy of leaving the EU and rejoining the British Empire as rather strangely kicking off by deporting Canadians.

I was simply horrified by the nasty comments underneath a story on this in the Scotsman a couple of weeks ago. I will not link to it. I like to think that the nastiness of May does not reflect our society, but there are some deeply unpleasant people out there in the unionist community. The comments also made a large number of totally incorrect assumptions. In fact the Zielsdorfs have claimed no UK benefits of any kind and have used neither the NHS nor the school, they home educate. Personally I think as fully participating and tax-paying members of the community they should have used those state assets, but they were scrupulous in not doing so.



Original Post 17 October 2016:

There is so much injustice in Tory Britain you trip over it when you are not looking. We just enjoyed a long weekend in the Highlands, and stayed through airbnb at the Wayfarers’ Rest in Laggan. Our hosts were the delightful Zielsdorf family, who could not have been more friendly and welcoming. Their kindness and attention were particularly remarkable given they are every second awaiting the arrival of the border force to deport them.

Cameron and some of the Zielsdorf children on the banks of the Spey (with permission)

Jason and Christy Zielsdorf are Canadian. They have been in Scotland for eight years, legally, and several of their children were born here. After studying theology at St Andrews, Jason decided to stay on. Armed with an entrepreneur visa, two years ago he bought the general store and bothy in the small Highland village of Laggan. The premises had been empty for 18 months, because there is not a rich living in providing this community service. The Zielsdorfs reckoned that by investing in the accommodation and opening a coffee shop highlighting their excellent home cooking (and it really is excellent), they could make a go of it and cater not just for locals but the passing hillwalkers. And they have done.

It took some time and a lot of work for the business to find its feet, and to date they have only been able to give full time employment to one person, not the two their visa stipulates. Although they argue given time their business will reach a stage to employ two people, the Home Office says their time is up and is insisting on their deportation; a month ago they were told they will be deported imminently.

Deporting children who have only ever known Scotland is ludicrous. Fairly well the entire community of Laggan has written in support of the Zielsdorfs. Both Jason and Christy have Scottish ancestry.

It is not easy to run a business in the Highlands and Laggan is better for what the Zielsdorfs have done. Local MP Drew Hendry has worked hard for them, but met only unhelpfulness from the Home Office, who have not even given a ministerial meeting promised in response to a parliamentary question.

We do not know when they will get the 5am knock on the door and be taken into custody. They have been unable to sell the Wayfarers’ Rest, in which they invested £240,000, because just as before they came, nobody else wants to run it. In an act of supreme pettiness, the Home Office have confiscated Jason’s driving licence, which makes life in the Highlands near impossible. Also as a former pastor Jason used to pay community visits on elderly and vulnerable people in isolated locations, which he cannot now do.

The truth is, having set arbitrary numerical limits on net immigration, if the Home office deports the Zielsdorf family that reduces net immigration by seven – and they are low-hanging fruit, easy to find, not able to disappear and defenceless. Their plight is Tory Britain’s heartless xenophobia in action.

This case is a prime example of how ridiculous it is to rule the Highlands from London. The law is framed to deal with the immigration situation in London or Birmingham. It is totally inappropriate to the Highlands, where the problem is under-population, where a village store is a precious thing and providing even one full time job to the community is invaluable.

It is also of course worth noting that it takes a special kind of government stupidity to embark upon post-Brexit relationships by picking on the Canadians.

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