Monthly Archives: April 2019

Brexit, Conservative Friends of Israel, Deadhead MPs, elections, MPs, Party Politics, Uncategorized

Deadhead MPs, An Occasional Series: The Justin Tomlinson Story

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Background

Here, in my occasional series about those I am pleased to call “deadhead MPs”, I now feature Justin Tomlinson MP [Con, North Swindon]. Tomlinson is unique —so far— in terms of this series, in that he has actually achieved junior ministerial rank (appointed junior minister at the DWP). [*Note: I have previously written about Kate Osamor MP, but until she resigned she was only in the Shadow Cabinet and has never been in government].

As on previous occasions in this series, this MP’s academic and work background do not inspire confidence. His family origins seem obscure. Having been born in Blackburn, Lancs, in 1976, he attended a comprehensive school in Kidderminster, Worcs, before reading History and Politics at Oxford Brookes University (the former Oxford Poly).

Arguably bizarrely, Tomlinson’s only known employed position was as manager of a small nightclub known as Eros, in Swindon: see Notes, below (the photographs show scenes every bit as ghastly as expected, a strange mish-mash of provincial, cheesy, decadent and humdrum. Forget Cabaret, think The Office).

It must remain a mystery as to why Tomlinson, a son of either Lancashire or Worcestershire, and then a student in Oxfordshire, relocated yet further South to Wiltshire. Was the Swindon job (as manager of “Eros”) the only one he could get?

We are asked to believe that Tomlinson also “ran a small marketing business” called TB Marketing Solutions Ltd at the same time (c.2000-c.2010). It must have been “small” indeed. The Companies House accounts summary shows the company’s net worth in 2011 at only £66,000. It seems to have had, at any one time, only one director other than Tomlinson, as well as a company secretary, and to have operated from a privately-owned or rented flat in Swindon. It was dissolved in or shortly after 2011. Still, something to add to the CV, I suppose…

Tomlinson may be short on background but he is certainly not lacking self-confidence, having when a student placed a bet on himself to become Prime Minister!

“Chris Kelly and Justin Tomlinson stand to collect £500,000 from William Hill should either become prime minister before 2038. Tomlinson placed two £50 bets at 10,000/1 when the pair were at university. Both are already Conservative MPs.” [BBC, in 2012]

Chris Kelly stood down as MP in 2015 (returning to his family’s Midlands truck-rental business), which is a pity in that he might have made a good “deadhead MP” for this series, were I able to find anything even slightly interesting to say about him.

Back to Tomlinson. He was a local councillor for several years prior to being selected then elected as MP for North Swindon, one of the two constituencies in the town.

Some highlights from Tomlinson’s Parliamentary career

  • “In May 2015, it was reported by The Huffington Post that his appointment as Minister for Disabled People was controversial as he had previously voted against protecting the benefits of disabled children and those undergoing cancer treatment.” [Wikipedia];
  • “Tomlinson faced calls for his resignation in October 2015 after it was reported that he had leaked information from the Public Accounts committee regarding regulation of short term high cost credit “payday lenders” to Wonga.com back in 2013. Tomlinson accepted he had broken the rules and apologised, stating that his “strongly-held belief that action needed to be taken on payday lenders” had caused his “judgement to be clouded”.[13] Tomlinson arranged £30,000 of sponsorship for Swindon Supermarine F.C., a local football team by the same payday lender wonga.com. The football club’s chairman, Jez Webb, has made donations of £30,218 to both Tomlinson’s and local Conservative Party funds since 2014. Webb stated that he donated in a personal capacity and that the very similar amounts “were coincidental.”[14] Tomlinson was subsequently accused of trying to remove references to previous links to Wonga from his website, including the arrangement of a sponsorship deal with Swindon Supermarine F.C. in 2011.” [Wikipedia];
  • Tomlinson, 42, employs his personal partner, Katie Bennett, 28, as his office manager, on a salary of £50,000 p.a.; Tomlinson was married from 2012-2016 to another lady but is now divorced;
  • “Tomlinson leaked a draft of a public accounts committee report on the credit industry to someone he knew who worked for payday lender, Wonga. And when that person emailed four suggested amendments back, Tomlinson had forwarded them virtually word for word on to the Committee as if they were his own.” [The Guardian];
  • “In November 2018, Tomlinson again sparked controversy, this time by suggesting that families facing penury under the Universal Credit scheme initiated by the Conservative governments of 2010-2018 should “take in a lodger.”

“Tomlinson was apparently unaware that [even discounting the fact that few such families have spare rooms], both private and other (e.g. local council and housing association) leases prohibit any form of sub-letting.” [Evening Standard].

North Swindon

Considered to be a “bellwether” constituency, North Swindon has, since its creation in 1997, always followed the national trend. Tomlinson was elected for North Swindon in 2010, receiving a 44.6% vote share (Lab 30.5%). In 2015, the Conservative vote share was 50.3% (Lab 27.8%) and in 2017, 53.6 (Lab 38.4%). In other words, Labour are creeping back but were still well behind in 2017.

Tomlinson has consistently voted for Leave/Brexit, which may help him hang on.

Tomlinson’s vote in numbers was just under 30,000 in 2017, and his majority about 8,000. If, as a recent opinion poll claimed, half those who voted Conservative in 2017 are not going to vote Con in any 2019 General Election, that would reduce Tomlinson’s likely vote to about 15,000 and render the election of another candidate, probably the Labour one, likely. Labour got over 21,000 votes in 2017.

Conclusion

Well, there he is, voters of North Swindon— your deadhead MP. If you want to kick him out, the only lawful way is to vote for Labour or, if it stands, Brexit Party, next time.

Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Swindon_(UK_Parliament_constituency)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Tomlinson

https://www.gov.uk/government/people/justin-tomlinson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Kelly_(British_politician)

http://www.justintomlinson.com/about/biography

https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/16320207.rewind-pictures-from-cairos-and-eros/

https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/16320207.rewind-pictures-from-cairos-and-eros/#gallery9

https://companycheck.co.uk/company/04739303/TB-MARKETING-SOLUTIONS-LIMITED/companies-house-data

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/120514/tomlinson_justin.htm

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18769451

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/dwp-tory-apologises-parliament-making-14224350

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/15/justin-tomlinson-shows-sorry-seems-to-be-the-easiest-word

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1434753/mp-justin-tomlinson-announces-love-for-25-year-old-aide-after-divorcing-wife/

Below, Justin Tomlinson’s one-time milieu, Eros nightclub, Swindon, in 2002:

Update, 7 May 2019

Below, Tomlinson making himself look stupid and nasty again…

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/dwp-leaves-claimants-waiting-9-15010363

Update, 30 May 2020

In the end, Tomlinson held on at North Swindon rather easily. Nigel Farage stabbed his Brexit Party and its candidates (and supporters) in the back; Brexit Party candidates in Conservative Party-held seats (even where the sitting MP was a Remain partisan) were all stood down so that the Conservative Party could win the General Election of late 2019. Tomlinson thus faced no danger that much of his vote would defect to Brexit Party.

Not that the absence of Brexit Party materially altered the result. Labour’s vote slid substantially, and Tomlinson was re-elected by a majority double that which he had achieved in 2017, both in absolute and percentage terms (majority in 2017 was 8,335; in 2019, 16,171).

His vote share in 2019 was 59.1% (2017: 53.6%); pretty convincing by any standards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Swindon_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s

Tomlinson continues as Minister of State (i.e. junior minister) at the DWP, the post he has held since April 2019.

Update, 9 August 2022

Tomlinson was sacked as junior minister in a Government reshuffle of September 2021.

“In February 2022 Tomlinson was accused of bullying and sending inappropriate “unprofessional” and “belittling” messages to employees at Conservative Campaign Headquarters.[32]“

[Wikipedia].

Tomlinson must have blagged plenty of money since 2010 in terms of pay, expenses, and “consultancy fees” from Wonga etc. He may need those monies. On present opinion polling, the bellwether seat of Swindon North may jettison him at the next general election.

Conservative Friends of Israel, Deadhead MPs, elections, MPs, Party Politics, society, Uncategorized

Deadhead MPs, An Occasional Series: The Karl McCartney Story

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This is the latest in my occasional series about those whom I consider to be “deadhead MPs”. The lucky politico this time is Karl McCartney, MP for Lincoln 2010-2017.

I would not usually bother with someone who is no longer an MP and who is very unlikely to be returned to the House of Commons. In McCartney’s case, I have decided to make an exception. The reason is because McCartney’s combination of brash overconfidence, unpleasantness, personal moneygrabbing and expenses blodging, lack of interest in the poorer part of society and unimpressive academic and work background is now, and has become, over the past decades, almost typical of MPs (and by no means only on the Conservative side of UK System-politics). That such people can become MPs is an indictment of the selection and election procedures in place in the UK.

Lincoln is considered to be an “ultra-marginal” and a “swing seat”. In 2010, McCartney and the Conservatives won with 37.5% of the votes cast, as against 35.2% for Labour and 20.2% for the LibDems (BNP 3%, UKIP 2.2%, English Democrats 1.3% and an Independent on 0.5%).

In 2015, McCartney was re-elected: Con 42.6%, Lab 39.6%, UKIP 12.2%, LibDem 4.3%, TUSC 0.7%, Lincolnshire Independent 0.6%. The key points were the collapse of the LibDem vote by 16 points, the non-appearance of the BNP and English Democrats, and the rise of UKIP —by 10 points, though that was modest bearing in mind that the BNP and EDs did not stand. Both Con and Lab increased their percentages.

In 2017, the result was Lab 47.9%, Con 44.7%, UKIP 2.6%, LibDem 2.6%, Green 1.2%, and two Independents (0.6%, 0.3%). A pattern seen in many constituencies: UKIP slumping back to a 2010 or pre-2010 level and the LibDems failing to recover from the 2015 debacle and indeed slipping further. While the Con vote percentage did slightly increase –2 points– in 2017, Lab did far better–8 points higher. That despite the UKIP slump, despite McCartney favouring Leave/Brexit, despite the appearance of a Green candidate likely to impact the Labour vote. It is hard to escape the view that the Con loss was the result of popular judgment on McCartney himself.

McCartney was exposed from 2010-2017, in various ways, as unsuitable.

A lecturer at the University of Lincoln blamed McCartney’s laziness and complacency for the loss (see Notes, below) and was too polite to mention McCartney’s alleged porn-trawling (though that was, admittedly, in 2014), his employment of his wife at £50,000 a year via Parliamentary expenses, or his expenses generally.

“On 28 February 2013 McCartney apologised to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) for the content of notes he had sent to staff. The notes were described by IPSA Chief Executive, Andrew McDonald as ‘abusive’, ‘offensive’ and ‘condescending’. McCartney’s apology stated, “I apologise unreservedly to IPSA for my comments” [Wikipedia]. and

“The following month he claimed that IPSA’s incompetence had forced MPs from all parties to borrow money and that he had had to ask his parents for financial assistance.[30] McCartney also said that he had been told by a “senior IPSA official” that the organisation intended to “damage MPs as much as possible,” a claim that IPSA said was “wild ..simply untrue.” [Wikipedia].

An idea of McCartney’s character can also be gained from the Twitter exchange printed in a local newspaper: https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/lincoln-news/bitter-row-breaks-out-twitter-1447360

The readers’ comments section under that newspaper report was harsh:

“Poor old Karl. He really needs to wipe away those tears and get on with his life. He is an arrogant, rude and bitter loser. And they are his good points. Lincoln and the Conservatives are better off without him. Ignore him Karen.”

and

“Happiest day last year was when he walked away in a huff and refused to speak to anyone or congratulate at the election result which pretty much summed everything up.”

As to what McCartney is doing now, I think that the answer may be “very little”. I notice that, as I write this piece, around 1800 hrs, he has already tweeted or retweeted 29 times today, so far. His website seems to say that he will be the Conservative candidate at the next general election. It is hard to know why. One can only speculate as to why the local Conservatives have chosen him. He was a lay magistrate at one time; he is a Freeman of the City of London (see Notes, below), having “worked with”, his website claims, more than one Lord Mayor in the late 1990s. Freemason? I do not know.

McCartney obviously did pretty well financially in his 7 years as MP: salary of (then) about £70,000 pa, and wife’s salary (paid out of his expenses claimed) £50,000 pa; also possible other (outside) sources of income (I do not know about this). His overall expenses alone over his time as MP totalled well over a million pounds. He does not appear to have a job at present (there is nothing mentioned on his website); perhaps his wife has found another job, now that her well-paid work as her husband’s assistant has gone.

Readers of The Lincolnite (online newspaper) were as harsh as those commenting on Lincoln Live (above):

“A totally useless MP, more concerned about himself and his expenses than he ever was about Lincoln – amazed that they’ve reselected this waste of space.

John Bercow (Speaker, House of Commons) summed him up nicely with this in a parliamentary debate when McCartney let himself (and us) down yet again:

“Mr McCartney, calm yourself. Be quiet, young man. We do not need to hear from you. You add nothing and you subtract from the proceedings.”

Then there were the abusive notes (for which he had to apologise) he sent to the parliamentary expenses staff when they queried his expenses.”

and
“Unvelievable! [sic] A sure fire way for the Conservatives to lose votes.”
and
“It’s not what you know but who you know ,Roll your trouser leg up, funny handshake and fancy apron crowd.”

 

What are McCartney’s chances of getting back as Lincoln’s MP? Very slight. I have blogged elsewhere about the impact of Brexit Party (and slightly revived UKIP) on the Conservative vote, assuming that Brexit Party contests a general election. That alone would sink the Conservatives in an ultra-marginal such as Lincoln.

Another point is that present Labour MP, Karen Lee, who worked in shops for years before spending 14 years as an NHS nurse, still puts in some shifts at a local hospital, donating her NHS earnings to charity! What a contrast to greedy, moneygrasping and “entitled” McCartney! His work in the City of London in the 1990s was obviously so unimportant that even his own website says almost nothing about it (neither does he seem to have done much outside Con politics in the decade up to his election in 2010).

In addition to all that, Karen Lee is local in origin, whereas McCartney was born in Birkenhead, “Murkyside” (Merseyside), and was educated there and in Wales.

Well, there you are. My latest “deadhead MP”, who is hoping to resume his place at the trough soon. Over to you, voters of Lincoln…

Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_McCartney

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Lee_(politician)

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/11/27/tory-mp-karl-mccartney-tweet_n_6232142.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvLnVrLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIKZhoa8XJCbB18xVaaWRBehkKE5w89EpDknuZJaJ8VfUfEduIH82JL8WXecZ0k7u8-GT4528zeaV2gMoMCe7kQ5jN5eBgSwNM6ayc1OQI9PIsXSsHYaEO29QoJ2fz2DE1esHEBaKTjrJD2ZQ9ShET86lXCWEgNmlpCKEmDNbwgz

https://metro.co.uk/2014/11/27/tory-mp-hastily-deletes-twitter-favourites-after-porn-gaffe-4964888/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-30230261

https://labourlist.org/2014/11/tory-mp-favourites-graphic-porn-tweet/

https://politicalscrapbook.net/2014/11/karl-mccartney-mp-and-twitter-porn/

https://www.anorak.co.uk/352433/money/karl-mccartney-shocked-that-politicians-can-be-treated-like-any-poor-sod-waiting-for-benefits.html

https://www.karlmccartney.co.uk/

https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/former-lincoln-mp-karl-mccartney-111161

https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/lincoln-news/bitter-row-breaks-out-twitter-1447360

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/24790/karl_mccartney/lincoln/votes

https://adrippingtap.wordpress.com/tag/karl-mccartney-mp/

https://thelincolnite.co.uk/2019/03/lincoln-conservatives-re-select-karl-mccartney-for-mp-candidate/

https://www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2019/03/mccartney-selected-as-the-candidate-for-lincoln-his-former-constituency.html

Note re. “Freeman of the City of London”:

“In England, the most established borough freedom is that conferred by the Freedom of the City of London, first recorded in 1237. This is closely tied to the role and status of the livery companies. From 1835, the freedom “without the intervention of a Livery Company” has been bestowed by a general resolution of Common Council, by “redemption” (purchase), at one time for an onerous sum. Now the Freedom can be obtained by servitude, by patrimony, by nomination, or by presentation via a Livery Company. Freedom through nomination by two sponsors is available for a fee (known as a “fine”) of £100, but is free to those on the electoral roll of the City.” [Wikipedia]

Update, 1 May 2019

I am writing this update just after 1400 hrs. McCartney took to Twitter today at about 0600 and, by my reckoning, has, in the intervening 8 hours, tweeted or retweeted at least 52 times (I think that I have left out a few retweets). Quite a few of his tweets and retweets seem to be about “anti-Semitism” in the Labour Party. McCartney must have been part of the “Friends of Israel” crowd (like 80% of “Conservative” MPs). He obviously wants to remain (((onside))). I have no idea whether Lincoln’s deadhead former MP actually has a job at present. I doubt it. He seems an extremely unpleasant person either way.

Update, 18 July 2019

https://thelincolnite.co.uk/2019/07/karl-mccartney-on-lincolns-climate-emergency-fine-words-butter-no-parsnips/

In the article above, written for The Lincolnite (local online newspaper), McCartney again obsesses about “anti-Semitism” in the Labour Party, saying that Labour peers have raised the issue again. Well, about 50 or 60 have, out of 179…

I wonder whether the voters of Lincoln share McCartney’s obsession with speaking out in favour of the Jewish lobby? I doubt it! As for the rest of his article, the Lincolnite needs a sub-editor to correct spelling errors (“buses” is right, “busses” is not) and grammar.

Some of the few readers’ comments on the above article have been unkind:

“FAT303

Why are you giving this failed Tory a voice he spent 1000s on a letter folder, and employed his wife as an assistant on 45k a year. He doesnt give a toss about us he just wants his expenses back…“
and

“Graham R Peck

I am assuming the Lincolnite has decided to join his very early election campaign hence the article. I assume we will get more of the same until a General Election. As it stands he is a nobody and yet has got 3 times more space than the sitting MP who represents which Party? Well blow me“
Seems that McCartney and his wife, a local councillor, are living rather well off the hump, despite having had their joint income reduced since his 2017 election failure:
Update, 3 November 2019
Well, it seems that McCartney’s leech-like tenaciousness in Lincoln might (against the odds and all reason) pay off. Corbyn-Labour is suffering a crisis of public confidence, while (by reason of that) Boris-Idiot and the misnamed “Conservatives” are riding high in the opinion polls.
People vote (mainly) according to party label and national trend rather than for or against the individual candidate. That plays to McCartney’s advantage here, however unfair that may be. At present, the Conservatives are favourites in the betting to retake Lincoln (1/2) whereas Labour is on 11/8:
He remains not universally popular in Lincoln, though:
Update, 24 November 2019
Update, 26 November 2019
If I myself say so, it was rather prescient of me to have included Karl McCartney in my Deadhead MPs series, inasmuch as the tides have turned, at least temporarily, in his favour, which means that he may well be back as MP for Lincoln (well, MP for His Own Benefit, His Wife’s Benefit, and, maybe, Lincoln) by 12 December.
The betting odds have McCartney favourite to retake the seat on Polling Day. That must reflect the general/national public sentiment against Labour, mainly, as well as McCartney’s pro-Brexit stance in a Leave constituency.
Brexit Party is standing, but is probably of no great significance now, Farage having shot his own party in the head (now at 3% or so in the opinion polls). UKIP stood at Lincoln in 2017, but only received 2.6% of the total vote.
Update, 13 December 2019
Well, the voters of Lincoln have evidently eaten too many potatoes. McCartney has been elected again as MP. He must be celebrating his return to paid “work”, generous (whatever he says) expenses, and perhaps to getting his wife back on the gravy-train (£50,000 pa as “assistant” or whatever, yet again via expenses), though the rules were changed for MPs elected in or after 2017, so it may be that he at least will be prevented from blodging in that way.
McCartney was elected this time because the Brexit Party candidate withdrew on his own initiative. What an idiot…his (guessing) several thousand intended votes probably did it for McCartney, who beat the far better Labour candidate, Karen Lee, by about three and a half thousand votes.
Party Politics, society, Uncategorized

Some More Thoughts About the Next General Election in the UK

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A 2019 General Election?

A recent ComRes poll indicated that only about half of those who voted Conservative in the General Election of 2017 are intending to vote that way in the next general election, which might come any time between Summer 2019 and early June 2022. I have been thinking and blogging etc for a year or so that 2019 might be the year. Mainstream commentators have recently been gravitating to the same view.

The Brexit chaos has highlighted the incompetence of the Theresa May and other Conservative Party governments stretching back to 2010: roads, rail, social security/”welfare”, the migration-invasion (mass immigration), crime etc.

As I have more than once blogged and (before I was banned in our “free” country, tweeted), the choice for many may be between a Labour Party government which may well prove to be incompetent, and a Conservative Party government which has already, time and again, proven its incompetence.

Labour, Conservative, UKIP, Brexit Party

Labour is now slightly ahead of the Conservatives in the opinion polls, probably because

  • UKIP, though effectively washed-up as an electoral force, has managed, under its latest leader, Batten, to halt its downward slide;
  • Brexit Party now exists and is taking votes mainly from the Conservatives;
  • also, Theresa May is now finally seen almost universally as the disaster she is.

No-one expects UKIP to win seats in any general election this year; after all, 1 in 8 voters voted UKIP in 2015, but the rigged/unfair UK electoral system deprived it of its merited success. On strict PR voting, UKIP’s 12.6% popular vote would have given UKIP about 80 MPs. Indeed, had many not seen a vote for UKIP as a wasted vote, that number could have been doubled or even trebled. In Mrs. May’s now-famous screech, “nothing has changed!” as far as that is concerned.

UKIP will probably get a few percentage points of the vote in English and Welsh constituencies, maybe even 5%, but that will not win any seats. What it will do, though, is deprive the Conservatives (mainly) of those votes (nearly 600,000 in 2017). Many constituency seats are won and lost by less than a thousand votes.

Now we have Brexit Party, which I had thought would fight only the EU elections, but which, it seems (see Nigel Farage’s comments in Notes, below), now intends to fight the next UK general election.

My initial skepticism about Brexit Party has been proven wrong, at least in the opinion polls. Brexit Party is now running at anything up to 30% re. the EU elections, and, in initial polling, 14% in respect of Westminster elections. That latter polling may already have been superseded by events, but even 14%, at a general election, is huge, inasmuch as it means that Brexit Party and UKIP in aggregate may take away from (mainly) the Conservatives as much as 20% of the votes in any given English or Welsh constituency. In an average constituency with average GE turnout that works out at about 8,000 votes!

As usual, most of the Twitterati get it wrong. Look at the tweets below by one Tom Clarke, who seems to be a fairly typical Remain and anti-nationalist tweeter. He says, probably correctly, that 27% is not enough to “take power” but fails to see the side-effects in terms of depriving others of power…He also bleats about “mandate”. What about the 52% who voted Leave in 2016?

In fact, Twitter is a poor guide to elections and popular votes. The twitterati voted Remain in 2016 (losing side), thought that Trump had no chance of becoming US President (wrong again), and are (or often seem to be) almost all pro-immigration, virtue-signalling idiots etc…

Core votes

The Labour core vote, though no more than 25% of eligible voters, is solid because it is composed of those unlikely to be enticed by other parties presently around, and particularly by the Conservative Party: almost all “blacks and browns” (and other ethnic minorities, except for Jews); almost all of the poorly-paid, unemployed, and disabled. Others, while not “core vote”, add up to possibly another 10% of the eligible electorate: those 18-24 (only 4% favour Conservative), voters under 35 (only 16% favour Conservative). Increasing numbers of persons in their 30s, 40s and older are victims of buy-to-let parasites and bully landlords, or are not getting much personal or social benefit from their work. Labour’s policies speak to them. The Conservatives have nothing to say to such people except “pay up or get out! And don’t complain about repairs!” and “poor pay? Get a different job!”

When one thinks “who today would vote Conservative?” the answer, in broad brush terms must be

  • the wealthy
  • the affluent
  • buy to let parasites
  • those who own their homes outright and are financially stable
  • those elderly who are stick-in-the-mud creatures of frozen voting habits

That is the 25% or so core vote, to which must be added

  • those who hate Labour or Corbyn enough to vote Conservative simply in order to keep Labour and/or a Labour candidate out.

Here is an important point: the Labour core vote may be and probably is growing; the Conservative core vote is shrinking.

The Brexit Party and UKIP strike both at the Conservative core vote and the potentially-Conservative non-core vote.

Would Boris Johnson make a difference?

Doubtful. I concede that I am as anti-Boris as almost anyone could be, but my antipathy is matched by many voters: Boris is apparently the choice for Con leader (and so, unless there is a general election, Prime Minister by default) of about 70% of Conservative Party members (if one can believe sources such as the Daily Express), but even if correct, that is 70% of (at most) 120,000 Con Party members, i.e. 84,000 voters out of at least 40 million (in 2017, about 32 million voted).

In polls of the wider public, Boris Johnson is only a few percentage points ahead of other possible Con leaders.

Conclusion

Since 2017, I have thought that the most likely result of the next UK general election is Labour to win most seats, but not enough to have an overall majority. Now, for the first time, I am questioning that and wondering whether a strong general election campaign by both Brexit Party and UKIP might weaken the Conservative vote to the point where, nationally, the Conservatives might get as little as 30% (could it drop even to 25%?) as compared to 42.4% in 2017 and 36.9% in 2015.

I am of course no psephologist, but using online tools etc, it seems not unlikely that, if the Conservative vote falls to 30% and Labour is five points ahead, Labour might end up with about 300 seats and the Conservatives about 250. Others, about 100. No overall majority.

If, though, the Con vote were 25% and the Lab vote five points ahead, the Conservatives would end up with perhaps 225 or fewer seats, while Labour might get about 320. Yet again no overall majority for Corbyn, but closer.

However, we are uncharted territory, and in the “glorious uncertainly” of the British electoral system, it is not impossible that, in dozens and perhaps hundreds of constituencies, the Conservatives might come in second rather than first, their vote sapped by voters voting for UKIP, Brexit Party and others.

The ComRes poll cited at the start of this article said that only just over half of 2017 Con voters were planning to vote Con next time. In 2017, about 13,600,000 or so voted Con. If that is reduced to about 7 million, then the Conservative Party is toast.

In that event, the parliamentary Conservative Party would be reduced to a half, even a quarter of its present strength, and Labour under Jeremy Corbyn might actually be elected with a considerable majority. After that, anything might happen.

Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_Kingdom_general_election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Independence_Party#House_of_Commons_2

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/nigel-farage-thinks-his-brexit-party-can-win-general-election-1-5998829

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/24/nigel-farage-brexit-party-use-eu-elections-oust-remain-parliament

Afterthoughts, 25 April 2019

In my concluding sentences, above, I explored what might happen if Brexit Party (and/or UKIP, but Brexit Party is plainly taking off in a way that UKIP now is not) were to take away a large number of votes from the Conservatives. I examined what would happen if, nationally, the Conservatives went from 35%-45% down to 30% or 25% (or even lower).

Nigel Farage has made comments indicating that Brexit Party might make inroads into the Labour vote too, especially in the North where Labour was once monolithic in its supremacy in most constituencies.

The polling percentages and national vote percentages can only take you so far. In 2017, Theresa May led the Conservatives to inconclusive victory-defeat and 317 MPs, despite getting 42.4% of the national vote, a level not achieved by any political leader since Mrs Thatcher in 1983. In 2015, David Cameron-Levita’s Conservatives only got 36.9% of the national vote, yet 330 MPs. Only in an electoral system as Alice in Wonderland as that of the UK could that make any sense.

In other words, predictions are tricky when it comes to exact or even inexact numbers.

However, in my view, Brexit Party (and what is left of UKIP support) will hit the Conservatives harder than Labour. Indeed, some voters in seats where Labour never wins may vote tactically to unseat Conservatives, even if the result is that a LibDem or other may get in as a result. One can easily imagine seats fought until now as effectively a two-way split which may now be fought as a three-way or even four-way split.

If Brexit Party can go up from its 14% polling (Westminster voting intention; in EU elections the figure may be as high as 30%) to 25%+, that raises the serious possibility of Brexit Party MPs being elected. If about half the 2017 Conservative voters are not going to vote Conservative (as ComRes reports), are they going to abstain or vote elsewhere? The fact that they bothered to vote before seems to suggest that they will vote again. That means that even in the handful of seats where the Conservatives won in 2017 with over 60% of the vote, the Conservative share of the vote might go from 60% or so to 40%. (the safest Conservative seat is North East Hampshire: 65.5% in 2017).

In the circumstances above, defending a 60% vote share and ending up with perhaps 40%, the Conservatives would still win in most cases, but that would not be the case in more typical constituencies, where the Conservative MP won in 2017 with 50%, 40% or an even lower percentage of the votes cast. A Con MP who got 40% in 2017 might end up getting 30% or even 20% next time.

If Brexit Party can maintain momentum, it (with UKIP’s effect added) will cripple the Conservatives, who will lose swathes of seats. For example, in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Boris Johnson received about 50% of the vote in 2017. Most of the rest (40%) went to Labour. Were half or even a quarter of the Conservative votes to be cast elsewhere, Labour would win (even if the votes “cast elsewhere” were not cast for Labour). In that example, Boris would end up with less than 40% and (if Labour’s 2017 40% vote were to hold up), the Labour candidate would win. That could be replicated in hundreds of seats, in theory. Most would fall to Labour, a few might go to or revert to LibDem, but it is also possible that some would fall to the Brexit Party. At present, unreal though it feels, it is not totally impossible to foresee Nigel Farage’s Frankenstein coming to life (energized by the Brexit hullabaloo itself) and actually ending up as a bloc of anywhere between a few MPs and as many as 50.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uxbridge_and_South_Ruislip_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/insights/ge2017-marginal-seats-and-turnout/

https://fullfact.org/news/how-many-seats-are-safe-and-how-many-votes-count-under-first-past-post/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIkaOb1Ivr4QIVDFXTCh3Ing2pEAAYASAAEgK6fvD_BwE

and Farage has now confirmed that Brexit Party will fight the next general election. The Conservatives are toast.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/brexit/8938714/nigel-farage-brexit-party-general-election/

Update, 27 April 2019

Times columnist Iain Martin tweeted on 27 April 2019 that “Disintegrating Tories need a leader who can get the Brexit Party to shut up shop.” It is clear to him, quite evidently, that Brexit Party, even if only as a “super-protest”, has the ability to smash the Conservative Party forever by reducing a typical Conservative vote in a marginal or even hitherto “safe” constituency by anything up to 8,000 votes…

The corollary is —almost— equally true: if Brexit Party (and UKIP) either did not exist or were not popular, the Conservatives would be well ahead of Labour for the next general election.

27 April 2019

Interesting analysis from 2017: had Labour won 7 more seats (requiring only 2,227 votes!), Corbyn might now be Prime Minister!

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/corbyn-election-results-votes-away-prime-minister-theresa-may-hung-parliament-a7782581.html

and here is John Rentoul, writing in The Independent, saying outright part of what I have been saying (I think that he is the first msm commentator of importance to have done so), that is that the Conservative Party is a dead duck (he says “smoking ruin”!) and likely to run only third after Labour and Brexit Party at the next UK general election:

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-betrayal-corbyn-pm-farage-european-elections-a8888991.html

Not sure that Rentoul is right about Labour manifesto policy though: Corbyn might just continue to sit on the fence. It is working for him so far…

Meanwhile, Britain Elects tweets thus:

If that polling is right, the combined Brexit Party and UKIP vote at the possible/probable 2019 General Election is now running above 20%. Today 21%, tomorrow 25%, even 30%? Anything above 10% (as in 2015—UKIP got over 12% that year) is pretty bad for the Conservatives; anything above 20% will kill them stone dead. They would lose not even 100, but 200 MPs.

Update, 1 May 2019

With only 1 day to go before the UK local elections, I saw this tweet:

Meanwhile…

This is incredible! I am not a “supporter” of Farage or “Brexit Party”, but this is the sort of reception that few get! Reminiscent of the Fuhrer (though without the depth or substance, of course). Brexit Party is on a roll! Only three weeks to go before the moment of truth (EU elections).

Brexit, elections, MPs, Party Politics, Uncategorized

The New Party, “Change UK”, Is Already As Good As Finished

10 Comments

I have in the recent past posted a few analyses of the Labour and Conservative defectors who called themselves the “Independent Group of MPs”, which has now become the new party Change UK. I concluded that, if it became a party, it would have even less success than had the Social Democratic Party [SDP] in the 1980s: see Notes, below.

Change UK is now putting up candidates for the EU elections. As far as I know, it missed the boat for the UK local elections and in any case would have had few candidates available.

My attention was caught by the tweet below. The tweeter is “Senior Political Correspondent” for the online news outlet BuzzFeedUK.

The tweet makes the point readily enough. Change UK is the unalloyed party of Remain. It is also, as Wickham’s tweet suggests, the party of the Westminster Bubblers, and of the cronies and families of existing MPs and others who, like “Tricky Dicky from Billericay”, have been “doing rather well” out of the existing political and socio-economic system. I notice, as one does, that Change UK also seems to be the party of (some of) the Jews and (both Jewish and non-Jewish) Zionists. Luciana Berger, Mike Gapes, Gavin Esler etc.

Only this morning, Change UK launched its EU election campaign. 3,700 people wanted to be Change UK candidates. 70 were chosen. Some “celebrity” new candidates were announced: Gavin Esler, Rachel Johnson (one-time Editor of The Lady, and sister of that idiot who wants to be Prime Minister and whose comic am-dram reprise of Winston Churchill is apparently admired by a few people who have dined too well at the golf club).

“Esler added: “I have never been a member of a political party but I am now.
“I have never been a candidate in an election but I am now. I have never been seriously worried about the future of our country but I am now. Our political system is a joke. It is a worldwide joke. They are laughing at us – not with us, at us.” [The Guardian]

Those who have read my blog posts about The Independent Group/Change UK will not be surprised to be told that I rate the chances of the new party as being somewhere around zero. This is not in fact a party at all, but a dustbin into which has been thrown unwanted rubbish from the Labour and Conservative benches of the House of Commons.

The Interim Leader of this party without policies is Heidi Allen MP. She has made it very clear that Change UK (which has 11 defector-MPs now) will not bring down the present Conservative minority government:

“Asked if Change UK MPs would back the government in a no confidence vote, Ms Allen told the BBC: “I can’t say wholeheartedly that we’ll vote for the government, or indeed would we ever be a confidence and supply partner in any coalition type government. You need to see what the offer on the table is at the moment….Do I believe however that a general election is a smart thing right now for our country? Absolutely not.” [Daily Mirror]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/change-uk-refuse-force-general-14448533?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

Does Heidi Allen believe that statements like that fool potential voters? If she does, she must be even more stupid than I had imagined (despite her degree in astrophysics: I only ever met one person with such a degree, and that woman was as thick as two short planks…).

It is obvious to everyone, surely, that the “Change UK” MPs are unwilling either to precipitate a general election (which they probably could, given the numbers of the parties in the House of Commons) or to hold by-elections in their own seats, because they must know, in their hearts, that most of them have little or no chance of retaining those seats.

There are several reasons why I think that Change UK has no chance: its MPs, its palpable Hampstead/Highgate/Blackheath and also affluent provincial air, its paucity of policy, its apparently chaotic organization, and its connections with Jewishness and Israel (those latter being, though, the least of its problems).

Then we look at those MPs again….Heidi Allen, does anyone, anyone at all in the UK, see her as Prime Ministerial material? Fathead Chuka? Ha ha! He has a meltdown trying to decide what scent to wear and which nightclub to attend! What then about Anna Soubry, MP for Broxtowe, or should that be “for Plymouth and Angostura”?…

There is another aspect: the British people are not moving toward vague ZOG-approved “Centrism” (ZOG/NWO/EU-ism, if you like), but toward the so-called “extremes”, meaning that they actually want to be helped and not oppressed by their government, and they also want a government which can accomplish concrete results.

There is something doomed and even pointless about Change UK.

Some tweets from this morning (23 April 2019):

and there are thousands and thousands more like that…

This is a doomed party and I doubt that it will even have 1 MP after the next general election.

Notes

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/02/18/cabal-of-7-zionist-mps-leave-the-labour-party-good-riddance/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/02/19/the-independent-group-of-mps/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/02/20/three-blind-mice-see-how-they-run-conservative-party-mps-defect-to-the-independent-group/

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/23/change-uk-independent-group-launches-european-election-campaign-brexit

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48021730

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_(UK)

A few more thoughts

The funding of “Change UK” is opaque. It seems that it is funnelled via offshore trusts in at least two jurusdictions. Panama is one. The second part of the video below shows Joan Ryan, now a Change UK MP, at a time when she was still a Labour MP, conspiring with Shai Masot, an Israeli intelligence operative, and talking about using a million pounds in Israeli funds to suborn or corrupt MPs, presumably Labour ones. Does some of Change UK’s funding come from Israel or from secretive non-governmental Jewish sources?

Update, 26 April 2019

A tweet or two that caught my attention:

Update, 1 May 2019

Meanwhile, away from the pathetic defector MPs and their Israeli links, Brexit Party is storming forward, over the bodies of the already-dying “Change UK”:

This is incredible! I am not a “supporter” of Farage or “Brexit Party”, but this is the sort of reception that few get! Reminiscent of the Fuhrer (though without the depth or substance, of course). Brexit Party is on a roll! Only three weeks to go before the moment of truth (EU elections).

Update, 7 May 2019

While Brexit Party is holding large meetings, rallies almost, all over England (2,000 people in Peterborough, where the by-election is due on 6 June), Change UK is holding tiny gatherings, promoted by typical msm “journalists” (almost all pro-Israel, pro-Remain, anti-Brexit).

 

Update, 8 May 2019

Ironic! Lying Jew Zionist Mike Gapes MP (MP until the next general election…) well and truly put in his place by LBC’s Iain Dale (who usually bends over backwards for Jews)! If it had been any other presenter, Gapes would be screaming “anti-Semitism!” by now!

An interesting tweet (see below), from a week ago but just noticed: Change UK is less popular than Brexit Party even in metropolitan, cosmopolitan London!

and now Chris Leslie, one of the Change UK MPs, i.e. a political careerist elected under the Labour banner and who, facing deselection from his very safe seat, defected to the “Independent Group” which is now Change UK, decides to comment on the contrived Jess Phillips “rape” storm in a teacup:

https://twitter.com/ChrisLeslieMP/status/1125875335961165824

Unfortunately for deadhead Leslie (who belonged to Labour Friends of Israel….quelle surprise…), “Sargon of Akkad” (Carl Benjamin) is a UKIP candidate and not a Brexit Party one! Leslie wrong again. Thousands of replies later (see the thread), Leslie has still neither deleted his inaccurate tweet nor apologized. Incompetent little chancer, who has never had a job outside politics. A drone.

https://twitter.com/ChrisLeslieMP/status/1125875335961165824

Meanwhile, ex-BBC Jew journalist Gavin Esler is learning that it is easier to sit on the sidelines and comment than to join the political fray:

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1125071/Brexit-news-Change-UK-name-Twitter-Andrew-Neil-BBC-European-elections

Update, 14 May 2019

So now it turns out that some of the big donors to “Change UK” are a pack of Jews who are also behind finance-capitalist projects designed to snoop on British people. The names are enough…Isaacs, Sugarman, Agioff…

Update, 15 May 2019

You really could not make it up! Change UK (appropriately known as CHUKUP) is an “organization” of donkeys which is also “led” by donkeys! I have nothing against real donkeys (charming little friends of humanity who are more worthy and more beautiful than any of the CHUKUP MPs) but I prefer not to vote for human ones to rule over us!

Meanwhile (see below), faux-revolutionary poseur Owen Jones interviews Anna Soubry MP, who appears to have been on the sauce again, judging from her mannerisms and words. Or maybe she just has mental problems. Or both. She conflates freedom of speech (which she claims, falsely, to support) with freedom of movement inside the EU. Of course, she is a bit thick anyway, and certainly not educated or cultured. She says that the “white working class” are against immigration because they have never seen non-whites! She’s either cuckoo or drunk (again)! She also says that she does not want the votes of any Broxtowe voters who are anti-immigration. Bin her. Evil old bitch.

I hope that she loses her Commons seat and subsides into an alcoholic stupor somewhere.

Update, 18 May 2019

Some of the ex-Labour Change UK idiots now try to worm back into the Labour Party! Ha ha! I bet that fathead Chuka is one of them!

Meanwhile, in revolutionary Birmingham…

Excruciating. Even as a 22 year old, in 1978, leading my own tiny outfit, I still managed an audience of about 30 (above a pub in Chelsea)!

Not sure where fathead Chuka is now. Carnaby Street? He should have picked the Strand (because “you’re never alone with a Strand”)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjBHUQEiTPw

Imagine this: fathead Chuka was once spoken of (in the corrupt msm) as ministerial or even prime ministerial material! They said the same about airheaded Heidi Allen! Imagine idiots like that at the head of affairs! It might be even worse than the present bunch of idiots…

…while in Liverpool, Jewish couples meet to shoot the breeze while they shop…oh, no, wait, it’s Zionist MP Luciana Berger and her few supporters

Even in pro-Remain Edinburgh [see above and below], Change UK can only attract an audience of about 20 (mainly if not entirely msm scribblers)!

In the opinion polls, Change UK are now at or under 2%. Looks like this blog foretold the future accurately (again). Only 5 days to go before “Change UK” sinks permanently.

I just noticed this “blast from the past”: Zionist Kate Godfrey thought that she had a freeloading “Labour” political career set up, no doubt with the help of Common Purpose drones, but people saw through her careerism and Zionism, with the result that she never did become an MP, and later resigned from the Labour Party in a fit of pique, relocating from West Midland to East Midlands. Now she tries to become an MEP for Change UK! You couldn’t make it up! Ha ha! She made the wrong call yet again! She used to tweet nonsense about me to other Zionists in their Twitter echo-chamber, a few years ago. Looks like “the Curse of Millard” is still working!

Change UK holds a “rally” (5 members of the public and 5 reporters)!

Well, I was there a month ago, but the msm is now finally catching up with me!

“Change UK is dying before it even learned to walk. Its MPs know it. Its candidates know it. The public knows it. Change UK never really wanted to change anything. What it wanted most of all was for things to stay the same. For the UK to remain in the EU and for the extremes of both the Tory and Labour parties to shut up and go away” [ The Guardian]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/16/change-uk-is-dying-before-it-even-learned-to-walk

and

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/20/change-uk-european-elections-chuka-umunna

https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/politics/change-uk-mep-candidate-michelle-de-vries-attacked-while-campaigning-1-6066127

Update, 23 May 2019

So here we are, EU election day, and “Change UK” is tweeting (see below) that the problems of the UK are all because of “the lies” supposedly told by “the far right”, UKIP and Brexit Party (none of which have ever had any power in the UK)…

https://twitter.com/HarrowTIG/status/1131504807003545600

Meanwhile, I sincerely hope and believe that Change UK is being slaughtered at the polls.

Update, 26 May 2019

Votes being declared in the EU Elections. The BBC interviews Heidi Allen MP, the ex-Conservative defector now in Change UK. She says that CHUKUP is only “at the start of something”. Asked “where does Change UK go from here?”, she answers with waffle. CHUKUP is not even contesting the important Peterborough by-election. It’s finished.

Update, 27 May 2019

Oh, no! Looks as though Anna Soubry has been hitting the bottle again, following CHUKUP’s terminally poor European Elections results…

Even in the Broxtowe area, in which Anna Soubry’s constituency is located (the boundaries are not exactly the same but almost the same), CHUKUP only managed 4.7%. Anna Soubry should just open another bottle and try to forget what is left of her unimpressive political career.

Update, 24 June 2019

Well,  Change UK (I call it CHUKUP) is still notionally in existence by polling at statistical zero. As I predicted on 18 May, Fathead Chuka [Umunna] has indeed had a meltdown and defected, though to the LibDems rather than back to Labour (they wouldn’t let him rejoin). He lasted a month or so in CHUKUP, so anyway rather longer than the day or two he lasted as Labour leadership candidate! What a total waste of space Fathead Chuka is! I suppose that he hopes that the LibDems will find him a seat to contest. Not Streatham, which has been safe Labour since 1992: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streatham_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s

Meanwhile, “Interim Leader” Heidi Allen clashed with drunken creature Anna Soubry. Allen advised a merger with the LibDems. When Soubry attacked the idea, Heidi Allen walked, and now sits as am Independent. That leaves Anna Soubry as “leader” of this waste of space “party” and its 5 MPs, none of whom will be MPs as soon as a general election is called.

As I predicted pretty much from the start, finished.

Update, 4 July 2019

I missed this: Change UK is now called The Independent Group for Change. The third or fourth name this dead-parrot “party” has had in its few months of existence.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/13/change-uk-to-change-name-again-independent-group-for-change

I do not think that most newspapers even reported the above. Maybe a small paragraph on some obscure page. A sign that The Party Formerly Known As Change UK is on life-support, which with the next general election will be turned off.

Chuck Anna Soubry into a vat of alcohol and go home.

 

Brexit, Party Politics, society, Uncategorized

The Political Mood is Changing

21 Comments

There has been a see-sawing between the two main System parties for several years. At first, say in 2014-2015, it looked as though Labour was about to go into possibly terminal decline. I have no doubt that, had any of the pro-Israel, pro-EU candidates in the first post-GE 2015 Labour leadership contest (Liz Kendall, Chuka Umunna, Yvette Cooper) won, that would have come to pass. As we know, Corbyn won that contest, and Labour, though it came in second at the 2017 General Election, reduced the Conservative government to minority status. Since then the parties have generally been close together in the opinion polls, with the Conservatives usually slightly higher.

Since the 2017 election, the only difference between the two is that Corbyn has been favoured by fewer as a potential prime minister. Theresa May had the edge but no ringing endorsement (a typical result was Corbyn 25%, Theresa May 35%, Don’t Know 40%). I have not seen a recent poll about the System party leaders, but there have been recent polls vis a vis the upcoming EU election and re. Westminster voting intentions (the next general election might in theory only be in 2022, but there seems to be an acceptance that it might in fact be this year, as I predicted was not unlikely).

Here are recent poll results (questions asked about 3-8 days ago), collated by Britain Elects. The position of Nigel Farage’s pop-up Brexit Party is volatile, but it is plainly one of the two most favoured; UKIP is evidently some way behind all of Brexit Party, Labour and Conservative Party, but the important point is that both Brexit Party and UKIP will take votes mainly from the Conservatives in the EU elections (always assuming that the UK participates) and (if Brexit Party and UKIP put up candidates) in the general election of 2019 (if it happens). There are also local elections coming (2 May 2019) but the beneficiary there will be Labour, UKIP not being able to fight most seats and Brexit Party not standing at all.

It can be seen that YouGov is more bullish on Brexit Party’s chances than is ComRes, and that BP’s ratings vary daily or so even from a single pollster. However, there is some reason to believe that Farage’s new vehicle is riding even higher now (some estimates put its reach at over 30%).

An amateur or perhaps semi-professional psephologist has come up with this seat prediction for the EU election in the UK (based on a YouGov opinion poll):

Well, that’s for the EU Parliament. What about Westminster? The msm consensus now is what I have been predicting for a couple of years, Labour probably the largest party, but without overall majority. Where does that leave the Conservative Party? Quite possibly up a certain well-known creek without a paddle.

As I said here above, only a few years ago Labour looked like collapsing into becoming a niche party with maybe a 25% popular vote. Now things look very different: Corbyn has bent like the bamboo before the wind as the Jews (and the heavily Jew-influenced msm) have accused him of “anti-Semitism” (the Circuit judge in the Alison Chabloz appeal hearing recently confirmed that “anti-Semitism” is not a crime in England anyway…pass it on…).

The Zionist storm has been ferocious around Corbyn since 2015, but he simply sways with the wind. If I had not read that Corbyn scarcely reads books (one of his ex-wives said that he read not one book during their 4 years together!), I would take Corbyn for an acolyte of Sun-Tzu.

Well, much has happened since Corbyn took over. A membership/support base of about 200,000 has become one of 500,000+, Labour no longer has financial problems, its members and supporters are often young, and its poll ratings are finally improving.

Now it is the Conservative Party that may be facing an existential crisis. We read that only about 5% of Conservative rank and file members want Theresa May to stay as Leader, that donations have completely dried up, that the median age of Conservative Party members is 51 (with many over 80 or even 90), and that the supposed 120,000+ membership number is either only a paper figure or shows huge numbers of completely inactive members who take no part in the party even locally or socially, but are signed up to bank direct debits.

Only 16% of voters under 35 intend to vote Conservative, while the figure for under-25-years is a mere 4%. True, Conservative voters have always been mainly middle-aged and elderly, but not to this extent.

The Conservatives have usually trumped Labour on competence (in public perception, but God knows why…), but that is now faltering. The Conservatives can say that a Corbyn government would be incompetent, but the voters have seen that (as with David Cameron-Levita) the Theresa May Conservative government has been proven so: the NHS deteriorating, the police incapable of stopping the rise in violent crime, the increase in Internet snooping and monitoring of ordinary white British citizens by police, MI5 etc, the numbers being made homeless or literally starved to death thanks to the incompetent “welfare” “reforms” of Iain Dunce Duncan Smith and the jew “lord” Freud etc; then there are the potholed roads, the bursting and inefficient railways, not to mention the millions of unwanted immigrants, often from backward, violent and useless ethnic groups, flooding in almost without restraint. Police stations have been closed and sold, prisons are in a appalling state, people are imprisoned for saying anything against the Jews, but given small fines for bad crimes of violence. Then there are the squeezes, over a decade, on incomes.

The appalling muddle over Brexit has crystallized such feelings about this government’s sheer incompetence.

About half the chairmen of local Conservative parties have said that they will be voting Brexit Party in the EU elections. The Conservative Party is a party which is folding. The leader has no credibility, Cabinet members have neither loyalty nor discipline, its MPs are also without discipline, and it seems that donations have dried up.

“A damning Survation poll of 781 Tory councillors today found 76% want the Prime Minister to resign – with 43% saying she must go immediately” and “One councillor questioned in the study said: “The Conservative Party is dead. It will take a strong leader to dredge it out of the mud.””

[Daily Mirror]

The Daily Mail has a similar story:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6943297/Devastating-poll-shows-40-Tory-councillors-Nigel-Farages-new-party.html

“I am embarrassed to be a member at the moment. This will be a case study of (predictable) incompetence which has made our country and party a laughing stock around the world.” and “I will not vote Conservative nationally again. I have been a lifetime supporter and a Conservative councillor for 33 years.”

[Daily Mail]

It was the early symptom of the membership demographic problem (aka “an ancient membership…”), from 2010, that led to the Conservative Party trying to plug the door-knocking gap by bussing in hordes of young Con activists and/or employees via the disastrous Mark Clarke tour, because many constituency associations had almost literally no-one willing to canvass voters, mostly because, while some constituency associations had 200 or even 300 members, all of them were either infirm or far beyond retirement age.

More generally, it can be seen that there is a move to radical and even revolutionary politics. MSM scribblers are starting to take notice:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6943195/The-political-centre-disappearing-grave-danger-lies-ahead-says-JOHN-GRAY.html

To listen to strong “Brexiteers”, one would imagine that Brexit is the only issue. Poorly-educated and perhaps not very intelligent msm scribblers, such as Susie Boniface, the so-called “Fleet Street Fox” (a Remain partisan), make the same mistake in reverse. Susie Boniface writes that the voters of Newport West, in the recent by-election, voted for a Remain-supporting (Labour) MP despite the fact that the area (not the exact area) voted Leave in 2016. She infers from that that voters have changed their mind on EU membership. No, they simply wanted a MP who (supposedly) believes in public services, decent pay and fair benefits for those that need them. Is it so hard to understand such things? Maybe if you are a London-based scribbler making a few hundred thousand a year and writing to an agenda…

We can see, looking ahead, that people are turning away from the System parties because the needs of the British people are simply not being met on any of the issues raised above. For the moment, those for whom Brexit is all-important have the safety-valves of UKIP and Brexit Party; on other issues, for many, Corbyn-Labour will fill the gap, for a while. In the end, though, only real social nationalism can offer a future for the real British people. 2022 may be the decisive year.

Note on Voting Percentages

The “glorious uncertainty” of British politics (oddly-drawn constituencies, FPTP voting etc) makes popular vote percentages of less importance than would be the case in a system of even passing fairness.

As can be seen from the linked charts, below, the Conservatives under Theresa May got a higher popular vote percentage (42.3%) in 2017 than the party had managed since Margaret Thatcher in 1983 (42,4%), yet only 317 MPs (currently 312) as against Mrs. Thatcher’s 376! In 2015, under David Cameron-Levita, the Conservatives got a popular vote of 36.9%, yet ended with 330 MPs!  That’s the British system of voting— ridiculous.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Party_(UK)#UK_general_elections

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Commons_of_the_United_Kingdom#Current_composition

General Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susie_Boniface#Personal_life

Update, 22 April 2019

recent msm comment:

Note that the percentages shown below relate to the views of Conservative councillors, and not those of rank and file members (or ordinary voters):

Labour has problems as well…; but it is a measure of how angry and frustrated voters are that not even the prospect of Diane Abbott (here seen drinking a canned alcoholic mojito on the Underground/Overground) as Home Secretary is (much) denting Labour’s poll rating now!

Meanwhile…

 

The racially and culturally inferior are allowed to flood into the UK and the rest of Europe, and in the UK are tolerated, given housing, given food money and more if they start breeding. Meanwhile, for the British, life becomes harsher daily:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/21/stephen-smith-liverpool-seriously-ill-emaciated-man-denied-benefits-dwp-dies

animal welfare, environment, free speech, historical, Reminiscences and Musings, society, Uncategorized, wildlife

Is the World “Running Out of Time”?

6 Comments

Extinction Rebellion, David Attenborough, and the debate

In the past days, the “Extinction Rebellion” troops have brought Central London to a halt. I am interested in the protest, not because of its own puerile idea that it will actually accomplish anything, but for other reasons: interesting how limited the official (police) reaction was at first, before millions of Londoners started to get angry at their daily life being disrupted; interesting how the protests have dovetailed with more Establishment propaganda (and I use the term purely neutrally), such as the David Attenborough film trailed below; interesting too how easily the London streets were “taken over”.

The BBC has fired both barrels on this. Some of the msm has followed.

My thoughts

I should say immediately and in brief what is my own view of climate change.

I think that there is little doubt that climate change is happening. In particular, the Earth may well be warming. It has both warmed and cooled in the past, both in periods of geological time and in the relatively short time that humans have been on the Earth. In fact, we know from written records and necessary implications that there has been a considerable variation even in the last few hundred years, over the past 1,000 years, over the past 2,000 (etc).

In the times of the Vikings, Greenland was exactly that, albeit briefly, and in the 11th and 12th centuries had farms, homesteads etc, as recent archaeological discoveries have confirmed. The “Mediaeval Warm Period”, c.950-c.1250 AD also meant that vines could be grown successfully in Britain. It is said to have been the warmest period in Europe since the “Roman Warm Period” (c.250 BC to c.400 AD), which of course covers both much of the time of the ancient Greek or Hellenistic Period and then the flowering of both the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire.

More recently, there was the “Little Ice Age”, which is rather elastic: c.1300 AD to the second half of the 19thC , but within those 550+ years, three colder periods, especially the one starting in 1650, famous for ice fairs on the Thames, skating on ponds in the Low Countries (as shown in Old Master paintings) etc. There is a good representation of the former in the 1947 film Wicked Lady [see Notes below; the Thames ice fair scene starts just before 00:59:05 and ends at about 01:03:05].

It is noteworthy, by the way, that the warmer periods of Europe’s history have been the more prosperous and the more peaceful too, overall, though not without exceptions.

Obviously, human beings cannot tolerate temperatures too cold or too hot. We require temperate or relatively temperate climatic conditions.

Let us say (i.e. assume) that the orthodox scientists are correct and that there is “climate change” amounting to “global warming”. Then we move to causation: what is causing the warming? The scientific establishment has established a dogma which says that human activities, specifically emissions of carbon, are the predominant causes. Dissident scientists etc point to sunspots or other causes.

Let us further say/assume that the more-officially-approved scientists are right and that human activity is the cause of the putative climate change/global warming. What can be done? There consensus breaks down.

The huge new economies of Asia do not want to stop polluting if that means that industrial output slows, because in India that would mean destitution for untold millions, and in China would mean, very likely, economic collapse and political revolution.

In fact, China at least is doing much in terms of reducing “emissions” (assuming that therein lies the problem) but here we come up against the real cause of most of the environmental problems of the world today: too many people, and too many farm animals to feed carnivorous populations, as well as too much energy used to warm or cool those enormous populations, the world population having grown about 20 times larger since the start of our age (the 5th Post-Atlantean Age) around 1400 AD.

I blogged not too long ago about the overall problem facing the world:

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/01/26/the-tide-is-coming-in-reflections-on-the-possible-end-of-our-present-civilization-and-what-might-follow/

The obvious answer to the present or upcoming world crisis, which crisis includes, but not exclusively, mass extinction of creatures, “emissions” (assuming that they are of the importance the scientific establishment thinks), spoliation of land and oceans, is a huge reduction of the human population of the Earth. The main question, apart from whether it will happen, is by what method it could (will?) happen.

From the sublime to the ridiculous…

So we come back to “Extinction Rebellion” and their London protest. I am sure that most of them are well-meaning, even if totally and laughably up their own a***s, in the contemporary phrase. Many of these people are all too easy to ridicule. Emma Thompson, with or without her designer non-European adoptee, flew in (no doubt First Class) from LA to protest about people like her flying all over the place for trivial reasons; maybe it is thought OK if you are a millionairess and actress who lives in houses and villas in Hampstead, Bute (Scottish Highlands), Ibiza or France, when not in Beverly Hills or Bel-Air.

The reaction to the poseurs has been vitriolic in places:

However, “useful idiots” support the protest (and Emma Thompson), as appears from the tweet of “Geri the Gerbil”, below :

“Geri the Gerbil” seems to assume that the Extinction Rebellion protests will actually accomplish anything re. “climate change”. No, let alone “save the planet”! Obviously they change nothing at all.

Here’s another one (see below) defending Emma Thompson, while urging people to sell their second homes and stop holidaying overseas (mixed message? Emma Thompson has about 4 or 5 luxury homes, including 2 or 3 overseas, and flies frequently, sometimes on private jets…). Maybe the clue is in the “Costa del Sol” part of the tweet by tweeter “Caroline” , i.e. it’s OK for a wealthy and terminally politically correct theatrical like Emma Thompson to fly all over the world, have half a dozen houses in several different countries etc, but woe betide you plebs from having a tiny concrete villa on a Spanish costa and taking an EasyJet there a couple of times a year! Shades of Emily Thornberry’s “White Van Man” gaffe, perhaps.

I might respect Emma Thompson more if she just said “it would be better to have a tenth of the present world population” (I might even agree with that, especially if those left were mainly European) or “international flights and second, third or fourth homes are OK for a few rich people like me, but not for the million…”

Well, I cannot reproduce the full range of idiocy on display here, but here are just a couple of other deluded fools anyway:

And what about this one (below), one Natasha Cox? She loves London being closed down because the atmosphere is lovely, there is no traffic, and there is dancing! She is evidently not an economic scientist! Where does one even start with such people?! Smiling and being well-meaning are both good, but not nearly enough…

Time for serious people to tip-toe away…

What interests me is that the Extinction Rebellion mobs were at first not stopped by the police: some police “officers” even danced with some of the protestors. I wonder what would happen if a few thousand social nationalists took over Central London. Would the police be so easygoing? I think not. Is it a class thing, because so many of the protestors seem to have come from rural or suburban enclaves where some no doubt live in comfort on their trust funds or buy-to-let incomes? The police are now belatedly getting a little tougher:

Another point that interested me, watching some self-righteous fellow on TV news today explaining why this direct action protest was the right method, was his assertion that MPs, society etc had to be forced to do what the protestors would like to see. Whatever one may think of their views (and I am not completely out of sympathy with them —social nationalism has always been quite “green”:

see https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2016/11/17/social-nationalism-and-green-politics/ )

the fact is that this protest has a quite strong sub-terroristic edge under the surface “non-violent civil disobedience” stuff. If ten thousand (?) people are willing to shut down Central London “peacefully”, it may be that 1% of them, say 100, might be willing to do some very non-peaceful things. I merely pose the question.

Conclusion

The Extinction Rebellion protests will not change or expedite government policy, will not convince many not already convinced, and might cause others to be even more resistant to the environmental movement, which has some excellent aspects but which is terribly confused.

It is clear that only a mass sweeping away of the world population can accomplish the rescue of the planet and its life.

Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_expansion#Greenland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Warm_Period

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/01/26/the-tide-is-coming-in-reflections-on-the-possible-end-of-our-present-civilization-and-what-might-follow/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6991969/Humans-risk-wiping-ONE-MILLION-natural-species-Earths-life-support-reaches-breaking-point.html

Update, 21 April 2019

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6944245/Climate-change-protesters-millionaire-father-wanted-chop-trees.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ico=taboola_feed

Alternative “world is getting colder” exposition:

Alison Chabloz, Alison Chabloz, Campaign Against AntiSemitism, free speech, historical revisionism, Ian Millard, Jewish lobby in UK, Uncategorized

Alison Chabloz: The Show Goes On!

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alison

Alison Chabloz at the piano

The background

Many readers will already know the outline of the Alison Chabloz story, of how the singer-songwriter lost her job on a cruise ship after having been stalked, harassed and persecuted by Jew-Zionists who objected to her having woken up to the “holocaust” fakery.

Later, Alison Chabloz was privately prosecuted by the malicious Jew-Zionist lobby group, the “Campaign Against AntiSemitism” or CAA. During the course of that private prosecution, the CAA’s lawyer inadvertently let slip that (as Alison Chabloz and others had already discovered), several leading CAA members had been using false names to stalk, harass and troll non-Jews (mainly women) online. Named in open court were Stephen Silverman of Grays, Essex and one-time “film critic” and house-husband Stephen Applebaum, of Edgware, North London.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) took over the private prosecution and, though expected to drop all charges, continued the prosecution though changing the exact charges (one charge was in fact just dropped).

A Kafka-esque series of events ensued, including a malicious complaint made by Stephen Silverman (who carries the sinister title of “Director of Investigations and Enforcement” at the CAA “charity”) and his fellow Jew-Zionist Jonathan Hoffman of Sussex Friends of Israel (Hoffman has since been charged with assault unrelated to the Chabloz case: see Notes, below). An unpleasant old Jewish woman from North London was also involved. Their complaint about Alison Chabloz led to Alison being all but abducted by police in London, transported on the floor of a police van hundreds of miles North, then spending 2 days in police custody before the case was rejected by Derbyshire magistrates. The tactics of a police state, and an incompetent one at that.

The first “judge”, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Emma Arbuthnot, was forced to recuse herself (i.e. stand down from the Chabloz case) after it emerged that her husband, James Arbuthnot, a real stuffed shirt who was an MP before being elevated to the Lords, had been not only a member (as 80% of Conservative MPs are) but Chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel. Also, it transpired that the Arbuthnots had been on expenses-paid visits to Israel.

Jonathan Hoffman (see Notes, below), also wrote to the District Judge in the Chabloz case about that case, reminding him that they had been at school together! Perhaps surprisingly, this was not treated as a serious contempt of court.

The CPS prosecution ended with Alison’s conviction, on 14 June 2018, on two counts, under the notorious Communications Act 2003, s.127, at Westminster Magistrates’ Court by District Judge (Criminal) Zani, as well as one count on another charge. He imposed the following penalties:

  • 20 weeks’ imprisonment (on one reading, 12 weeks), suspended for 2 years;
  • a year-long ban on the use of “social media”;
  • financial penalties and imposts (not, technically, a fine) amounting to some £750;
  • 180 hours of “community service” (unpaid slave or serf labour);
  • days of “rehabilitation” (discussion and low-intensity brainwashing)

Since conviction

Alison Chabloz appealed her conviction and sentence to the Crown Court at Southwark. The result was that her appeal was dismissed. At time of writing, she is appealing on point of law to the Divisional Court (an offshoot of the High Court, in effect).

Prior to the hearing of the appeal, Alison Chabloz was unwilling to do the unpaid work part of her sentence at a time when appeal was outstanding. In relation to this,she was taken back to court (in Derbyshire) and was given more hours of unpaid work. She did in fact do a few days of picking up litter in Derbyshire churchyards.

Latest

The latest news is that Alison Chabloz will now not have to do any (more) hours of community service serf-labour!

I imagine that (((the usual suspects))) will be wailing and gnashing their teeth about this latest news! It means that Alison Chabloz is almost home free. True, there is still the conviction itself, but that is being appealed and may even end up in the highest forum of law in England. Likewise, there is still the social media ban, but that ends on 13 June 2019. In fact, the vaguely-worded social media ban has had little effect on Alison, who has been able to sidestep it by blogging on her WordPress blog (see Notes, below).

Overall, the whole process has been a victory for Alison Chabloz, for freedom of expression and for the anti-Zionist cause, and yet another slow, grinding defeat for the malicious snoops and trolls of the “Campaign Against AntiSemitism”.

Aftermath

Active Jew-Zionists, almost all of whom previously crowed about Alison Chabloz having been persecuted, prosecuted and convicted, have been having second thoughts. A few tweets (I have seen others):

Kamm, a lying hypocrite, who lied about me after my 2016 disbarment (procured by Jews), is once again a hypocrite here. True, he has written against the prosecution of Alison Chabloz, but at the same time has said that she should not be permitted to post material on online platforms or in the Press! Wonderful. “Free speech” in principle, but in practice closed off quietly and completely, by the decisions of online and offline platforms. Zionist hypocrisy par excellence.

More from Jews on Twitter

Adam Wagner (despite the surname, a Jew), attacked me when I had a Twitter account, and is a barrister specializing in “human rights” and similar areas. Here (see below), he is being taken to task by Twitter nuisance and bore “@frankiescar”, a Jew Zionist connected with the “Campaign Against AntiSemitism” (CAA). “Frankiescar”, real name Andrew Roberjot, is a kind of legal groupie (though not legally qualified). He turned up in person to gloat when I was before the Bar Disciplinary Tribunal in 2016. He frequently posts (often inaccurate) legal and political points on Twitter, including some silly lies about me, e.g. that “in the early 1980s”, I was considered to be “an eccentric but not particularly able barrister”: in fact, leaving aside what he tweeted about my abilities (though my IQ was once tested at 156 –like Trump! Oh dear!—…) I was in fact only Called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1991.

As a matter of fact, Frankiescar/Roberjot’s tweet does make one important point: that the prosecution of Alison Chabloz and others, and the attempted though failed attempts to prosecute yet others (including me) constitute nothing more or less than a political campaign by the “CAA” Zionists that has nothing much to do with anyone being subjected to “grossly offensive” matter, and everything to do with political repression and the suppression of political, social and historical views and opinions.

scan25

Conclusion

As noted above, the “CAA” may have won the initial battle, but Alison Chabloz has won the war. Effectively no community service, the financial penalty and suspended sentence being appealed, and the social media ban a dead letter. In addition, Alison Chabloz has now become an international figure and figurehead. The Zionists have procured for Alison Chabloz a worldwide audience for her views as well as her songs.

Hail victory!

Notes

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-47230443

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/holocaust-denial-antisemitic-song-auschwitz-alison-chabloz-conviction-upheld-a8777991.html

https://alisonchabloz.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Arbuthnot#Personal_life

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/holocaust-denier-alison-chabloz-loses-appeal-as-court-upholds-conviction/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6700737/Anti-Semitic-blogger-55-LOSES-bid-overturn-conviction-Holocaust-denial-social-media.html

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/when-i-was-a-victim-of-a-malicious-zionist-complaint/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/01/12/the-campaign-against-antisemitism-caa-takes-a-serious-hit/

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/jonathan-hoffman-ex-zionist-federation-vice-chair-faces-arrest-warrant-after-failing-to-appear-in-1.482146

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/trial-date-set-for-pro-israel-campaigners-accused-of-assault-1.482192

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/antisemitic-post-by-former-national-theatre-chief-probed-by-police/

https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&q=andrew%20roberjot&src=typd

Update, 21 June 2019

Update, 11 July 2019

Latest:

Alison Chabloz talks from her piano…

https://alisonchabloz.com/2019/07/11/fighting-back-and-winning/

Update, 18 July 2019

Alison Chabloz was recently before Chesterfield Mags’ Court in relation to non-performance of the “community service”, which the magistrate rightly called “the most punitive part of your sentence”. After she refused the suggestion that she be put on curfew and a tag (what nonsense the court system now is!), the magistrate mooted either imprisonment or a fine, but in the end just “suspended” the original sentence in respect of the unpaid work requirement, i.e. chucked it in the bin (where it belongs, along with the “Campaign Against Antisemitism” “Zionists”). Ha ha!

Alison Chabloz, Campaign Against AntiSemitism, David Icke, David Irving, free speech, historical, Ian Millard, Jewish lobby in UK, Mark Lewis, Reminiscences and Musings, Stray memories of life at the English Bar, Uncategorized

Letting Off Steam About Libel

1 Comment

My attention was caught by this news report:

Now many who read my blog will know that I was, in the 1991-2008 period, at various times a practising barrister (in England) and an employed barrister (mostly overseas). Defamation was not one of my specialisms. I would have liked it to have been. It is an interesting and lucrative field, often involving interesting and/or famous people, though certainly not demanding the highest legal skills or intellectual gifts (contrary to the general public belief).

I did a few cases of libel while at the Bar, though all were advisory; none reached a substantive court hearing. I did advise, pro bono (unpaid), and when only a student, on a libel matter the result of which made the front pages of the more serious newspapers: Flegon v. Solzhenitsyn [1987].

Unable (as a mere student) to appear before the judge and civil jury (all defamation cases then had a jury), I nonetheless attended court most days, sometimes all day, wrote (mostly ignored) instructions and good advice for the plaintiff (now dumbed-down to “claimant”), and advised generally on tactics etc (also mostly ignored). I was told by another attendee that once, I having told Flegon’s assistant to give Flegon a note while he, Flegon, was (speaking very loosely) “cross-examining” a witness, I bowed myself out of [High] Court, only for the judge to demand of Flegon, as soon as I had gone, “to see that note that you have just been given”. Apparently, the judge read the note and told Flegon (who was proving a massive pain to the judge in various ways) to “listen to the good advice that you have been given, Mr. Flegon”! My first commendation by the Bench!

The Daily Telegraph said, when Flegon died (16 years later, in 2003):

“His remarkable success at repeatedly getting manuscripts out of the Soviet Union led to the widespread view that he must have had contacts in the KGB; but in 1987 he won £10,000 libel damages in the High Court from Solzhenitsyn over an allegation to that effect in the Russian version of The Oak and Calf. Unable to afford a barrister’s fees, Flegon conducted his case himself, in faltering English.”

Well, returning from the past to the present, we often see people, usually on Twitter, either talking about suing this or that person (often another “tweeter”) or expressing an opinion on defamation cases before the courts.

The average Joe has no idea about legal matters, and yet many opine about the law and practice of defamation, perhaps because it tends to attract msm publicity. For example, the tweet below betrays no hint that the tweeter knows that people have never been allowed to get legal aid for matters of defamation.

Despite having been expelled from Twitter, I read the tweets of others, particularly those whom I consider “persons of interest”. Often, en passant, I see tweets by various idiots either threatening others with legal action or recommending that others sue —often named— other parties in defamation. Few seem to understand either the relevant law (which has changed somewhat in recent years) or the practical aspects.

In the Kezia Dugdale case reported today, the Scottish judge decided that the words written were defamatory, but that the defendant, Ms. Dugdale, had a defence (that of fair comment). By the way, note that that defence has now been replaced, in England and Wales, by a defence of “honest opinion”, but this case was heard in Scotland under Scottish law.

Now the claimant in that Kezia Dugdale case, a Mr. Campbell, obviously does not understand the law, having tweeted only today that the law or legal system is, in effect, asinine because the judge decided that the words were defamatory and yet had decided against him! Like many many others on Twitter etc, the said Mr. Campbell does not seem to understand that even if words are defamatory on their face or by implication, the defendant might yet have one or more of the available defences.

Time and again on Twitter (I am not on Facebook) I see people, innocent of any useful legal knowledge, claiming that words which are not defamatory anyway are defamatory, or (where the words might be defamatory) ignoring the available defences.

Prominent among the above are Jews on Twitter, who often invoke the name of “Mark Lewis Lawyer” (the Jew-Zionist lawyer who recently fled to Israel after being found guilty of professional misconduct: see Notes, below). In fact, his publicized defamation cases were all (the ones I saw anyway) very simple and straightforward, requiring little real legal expertise. My honest opinion is that he is a copper-bottomed self-publicizing poseur.

Take a look at the above paragraph. It might or might not be considered in part “defamatory” (or it might be considered as a whole or in part a “mere vulgar insult”, which would not be actionable in any event). Also, even if the statements above, or some or one, were to be considered defamatory, I have defences open to me should the supposed “top defamation specialist” reach out from his mobility scooter or wheelchair in Israel to sue me (he has so far not done so in respect of any of the rather many blog posts which I have written about him in the past months). I have the defences of, inter alia, “Truth”, “Honest Opinion”, and “Publication on a matter of public interest” available to me.

There again, the armchair lawyers of Twitter rarely consider other factors, chief amongst which is whether the defendant has any funds. If not, large sums (in some cases, hundreds of thousands of pounds) might be expended in pursuit of a defendant who (like me) would simply declare bankruptcy if faced with a money judgment. Bankruptcy in England is now little more than an inconvenience lasting for a year (in most cases) for someone without capital (whether in cash or real or other property) or income. There are few advantages to being broke (as I now am and, incidentally, as “Mark Lewis Lawyer” now is); one of them, though, is the useful one of being effectively “unsueable”.

There are other factors, but this is a blog post, not a legal treatise.

It is usually the case that the best advice that can be given to a potential litigant in defamation is “don’t”! Three examples:

  • Oscar Wilde. Wilde need not have brought the libel action which eventually led to his disgrace, imprisonment, exile and early death;
  • David Irving. A fine and persecuted (by the Jew lobby) historian, but not a lawyer. Need not have brought the case against Deborah Lipstadt, an American Jew-Zionist academic supported and funded by the worldwide Jewish/Zionist lobby. Insisted on appearing for himself. Said to have lost £2M in costs to the other side, at least on paper. He also, more importantly, had his books removed from large bookshop chains; some were even pulped. Large publishers dropped him;
  • Count Nikolai Tolstoy. The only one of the three whom I have ever met (once). The only one of these three who was the defendant (there was also a co-defendant in his case). He lost, but eventually paid only £57,000 of the £1.5M awarded against him initially; he paid the £57,000 years later and only after the death of the plaintiff, Lord Aldington.

So, Twitter armchair lawyers and the perpetually outraged: don’t put your daughter on the stage, never wear brown in town and stop threatening libel suits against people, even if you can get lawyers you can rely upon…

Notes

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%BD,_%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA

https://www.dworskibooks.com/index.php?route=information/news&news_id=3

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1430648/Alec-Flegon.html

https://www.scotsman.com/news/kezia-dugdale-this-case-was-never-about-the-definition-of-homophobia-1-4909617

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17580304.kezia-dugdale-releases-statement-after-winning-defamation-case/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde#Wilde_v._Queensberry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving#Libel_suit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Tolstoy#Controversy

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-David-Irving/s?rh=n%3A266239%2Cp_27%3ADavid+Irving

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/26/section/3/enacted

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/26/crossheading/defences/enacted

Blog Posts About “Mark Lewis Lawyer”

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/01/11/update-re-mark-lewis-lawyer-questions-are-raised/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/12/22/mark-lewis-lawyer-latest-update/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/12/20/self-publicizing-supposed-top-lawyer-mark-lewis-full-transcript-of-disciplinary-hearing-judgment-now-released-by-tribunal/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/12/19/the-latest-revelations-about-zionist-supposed-top-lawyer-mark-lewis/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/12/13/more-details-about-mark-lewis-lawyer-and-his-abusive-social-media-presence/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/12/11/mark-lewis-lawyer-disciplinary-case-now-updated-to-11-december-2018/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/11/23/mark-lewis-lawyer-tries-to-have-part-of-the-case-against-him-thrown-out/

 

historical, Reminiscences and Musings, Uncategorized

The Burning of Notre Dame de Paris: is it symbolic?

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Notre Dame, which as I write is still ablaze, is of course at the very heart of Paris and, metaphorically, France too. One could point to other buildings in that latter regard, perhaps the Sainte-Chapelle, the Sacre-Coeur, the Cathedral at Rheims, or even that of Chartres, but Notre-Dame symbolizes Paris, or did, until the secular landmark of the Eiffel Tower was constructed.

Like millions of visitors to Paris, I have been inside Notre-Dame a couple of times (as I have the Sainte-Chapelle, and the Sacre-Coeur with its unique atmosphere and where a Mass is continuously performed, 24 hours a day).

Sometimes, the burning of, e.g., a great building, is considered a symbolic event, marking a great change. One thinks of the Burning of Rome, the later Sack of Rome, the destruction of the great ancient Library of Alexandria, the Great Fire of London etc. In more modern times there was the deliberate burning of both the First Goetheanum in Switzerland (see Notes, below) and the Reichstag in Berlin.

Other catastrophic events can be —or be seen as— historically, politically or socially significant. When the Herald of Free Enterprise sank, in 1987, the very name made me wonder whether the era of “Thatcherism” was drawing to a close. It was. On a smaller scale, there was even speculation, at the time of the Marchioness disaster of 1989, as to the sociological meaning of it, if any (because so many well-heeled families in London, it was said, knew or were acquainted with one or more of the 51 people drowned and/or others on board).

Are these events causally connected in some way with the movement of history, or is it that human beings, having perhaps a premonition of coming events, attach meaning to large fires and other disasters? Was the fire at Windsor Castle in 1992 somehow connected with the events that hit the British Royal Family in 1992 and in the years after the Queen’s annus horribilis? It was certainly the case that, after hundreds were crushed to death at Khodinka Field while celebrating the crowning of Nikolai II in 1896, the “simple people” thought it a bad omen. Were they wrong?

France is facing an existential crisis still not fully accepted as such by most. The influx of Algerians, Tunisians and black Africans since the 1960s became a flood, a disastrous flood, many years ago.

France and particularly Paris is now under siege from those of non-European descent, some of which may have been born and (semi) educated in France, but who are, except in language (and sometimes even in that way) alien.

An extremely high proportion of the population of France (at least 30%) is now non-European, and that situation is worsening. At the same time, there is a pushback by the (real) French via the Gilets Jaunes movement and via support for Marine le Pen.

“President” Macron, a complete puppet of the Jewish lobby and New World Order, has instituted a “Zionist Occupation Government” in France via his pop-up “party” (facade), En Marche, which consists of random people from nowhere who were recruited almost overnight, thanks to funding from secretive sources.

Macron’s expressed policies are to ruin the French way of life and French society, and to put in its place a globalized bastard-American culture. His secret policies (the policies of those behind Macron) are no doubt worse yet. He has allowed yet more hordes of non-Europeans to flood into France. Paris itself has become a poubelle (dustbin) compared to what it was only a few decades ago.

I hope that some of Notre Dame can be saved. I wonder whether France can be, and what it might take to do it.

Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre-Dame_de_Paris

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacr%C3%A9-C%C5%93ur,_Paris

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sainte-Chapelle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goetheanum#First_Goetheanum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Herald_of_Free_Enterprise

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marchioness_disaster

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Windsor_Castle_fire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khodynka_Field#Khodynka_Tragedy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_France#Ethnic_groups

Update, 17 April 2019

Jews “have nothing to mourn“, says at least one Jew…

“France is in state of shock, the Christian world is outraged while muslims are rejoicing on social media. Jews have northing [sic] to mourn.”

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/23744

Addendum, 18 April 2019

“Blood will stream over Europe until the nations become aware of the frightful madness which drives them in circles. And then, struck by celestial music and made gentle, they approach their former altars all together, hear about the works of peace, and hold a great celebration of peace with fervent tears before the smoking altars” [Novalis]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novalis

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Novalis

Brexit, Party Politics, Uncategorized

A Few Thoughts About the EU and Local Elections To Be Held in May 2019

38 Comments

The Brexit mess, so spectacularly mishandled by Theresa May and the idiotic careerists around her, may save UKIP from immediate collapse as a party, inasmuch as many British voters will want to punish the Conservative Party one way or the other. There may be in general a “perfect storm” for the Conservative Party, pressured on two fronts by both the Leave and Remain sides.

There will soon be elections for the European Parliament, on 23 May 2019. Recent opinion polling seems to be saying that Labour will have a landslide: initial voting intentions show Labour on 37.8% (up from 24.4% in 2016); Conservatives at 23.1% (unchanged), Brexit Party (Nigel Farage’s new party) 10%, LibDem 8%, UKIP 7.5%, Change UK (the recent Lab/Con defector MPs’ vehicle) around 4%, among others.

One has to be cautious in assuming that the above opinion poll reflects the likely outcome. The same poll seems to indicate that, after discussion, many pro-EU voters prefer Change UK (which would hit Labour and LibDem levels), while anti-EU voters may prefer either UKIP or Brexit Party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_European_Parliament_election_in_the_United_Kingdom

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1112942/european-elections-voting-intentions-uk-conservative-labour-brexit-party

Before the EU elections (in which the UK may not participate at all if the UK leaves the UK before 23 May), there will be local elections, on 2 May 2019. The indications are that, in those elections, Labour may also sweep the poll, with Labour benefiting not only from the “pendulum” or “see-saw” effect of elections in a system using FPTP voting, but also from abstentions by usual Con voters (or by their voting for Brexit Party or UKIP).

As far as the local elections are concerned, Labour starts the campaign with several advantages. The decade of spending cuts has finally impacted even the most true-blue Conservative areas. Labour has a army of local activists, thanks to its membership surge under Corbyn. It also has funds from the same source.

The Conservatives have few local activists now and most are beyond retirement age. The party looks tired. The Brexit mess can only be laid at the door of Theresa May and her Cabinet. The Cons will be lucky to avoid a wipeout in the areas voting for local councillors on 2 May.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/11/conservative-mps-may-boycott-european-election-campaign

There are also strategic factors. The Conservative Party claims 124,000 members, which seems high (average 200 members per constituency). Most are elderly. Few are active. The median age for Conservative voters has also risen, to 52. Recent polling has shown that only 16% of voters under 35 support the Cons, and only 4% of those under 25 do so.

In respect of the local elections, I see them as a straight fight between Labour and Conservative, overall. Labour is obviously in a good position in every respect.

In respect of the EU elections (in England and Wales), Labour may start in pole position, but there is a long way to go. Pro-EU voters may vote Labour, LibDem, Change UK or even Conservative. Anti-EU voters may vote Brexit Party, UKIP, or possibly either Lab or Con. Hard to say. Many voters may just try to hit out at the Conservatives any way they can. The obvious way to hit at the Conservative Party government is to vote Labour, assuming that hitting out trumps Brexit issues.

I can see that, while the Jewish/Zionist attack on Corbyn-Labour has made a dent in Lab’s popularity over 3-4 years, the voters are now tired of the whole Labour “anti-Semitism” whining, not least because Labour is now suspending members who speak out against the Zionist prominence in the UK. People have real issues with which to contend. It is a mistake to think that Twitter is the same as the UK public, especially now that Twitter has purged so many dissident voices (including mine). Jews and their “useful idiots” have colonized Twitter, to an extent.

The Leave/Brexit vote will be split between UKIP and Brexit Party, weakening both. All the same, these EU elections are all about (in the UK) protest voting.

Whichever way one looks at it, Labour looks like doing very well at the local elections and fairly well at the EU elections.

Update, 14 April 2019

Some msm outlets are now predicting a solid Labour win in the expected General Election too

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6919951/Jeremy-Corbyn-win-general-election-Conservatives-face-losing-60-seats-Brexit.html

Update, April 15 2019

Despite having no policies beyond the UK leaving (really leaving) the EU, Brexit Party is already running at anywhere up to 15% in opinion polling for the EU elections of 23 May 2019.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6921149/Nigel-Farages-Brexit-Party-set-drain-Tory-candidates-EU-elections-month.html

It is reported that up to 56% of those who voted Leave in the 2016 EU Referendum will vote either Brexit Party or UKIP in any General Election held this year. It is unclear whether Brexit Party would contest a general election, but if not, its votes would presumably go to UKIP. So about 50% of about 52% = about 26% of votes. That might not be enough to win any seats (certainly not, if split two ways), but it would cripple the Conservatives.

Update, 17 April 2019

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-deal-theresa-may-european-parliament-elections-a8873056.html

Update, 18 April 2019

Update, 18 April 2019

Brexit Party, thanks to star turn Farage, is now at almost 30% in polling re. the EU elections. UKIP cannot seem to get much beyond 8%-9%. Still, that does mean that the Cons, in particular, will crash. They are polling now below 15% re. EU elections.

As far as the UK local elections are concerned, Brexit Party is taken out of the equation (contesting no seats) and UKIP is not contesting very many seats. That must favour Labour.

Update 21 April 2019

From the Daily Mail:

“If there is any overall winner from the meltdown in British politics, it will be Jeremy Corbyn – leader of what has become by any normal standards an extremist party.

As a historian of political ideas and movements, I have studied the rise and fall of parties and ideologies in Britain and Europe. 

Today we are witnessing a meltdown in British politics with no historical precedent. Both main parties are shedding their traditional supporters at an astonishing rate.

According to a ComRes poll published last week, not much more than half (53 per cent) of 2017 Conservative voters intend to vote Conservative at the next General Election.”

[John Gray, Daily Mail]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6943195/The-political-centre-disappearing-grave-danger-lies-ahead-says-JOHN-GRAY.html

Update, 24 April 2019

The mad jamboree which passes for UK democracy in 2019 continues apace. Ann Widdecombe, one of the worst Home Secretaries ever, is going to be a Brexit Party candidate (for the EU Parliament seat of South West England). She says that she will still vote Conservative in the local elections. Having just looked up her details, it seems that she is 71. I thought that she was at least 80.

The tweet below captures the mood:

At least Ann Widdecombe is an animal-lover, especially cat-lover…

Update, 27 April 2019

Britain Elects organization has just today tweeted as below:

As can be seen, and with less than 28 days to go before polling (assuming that the UK takes part in the EU elections), Brexit Party is neck and neck with Labour and has the momentum. The Conservatives are rapidly becoming also-rans as far as the EU elections are concerned. It looks as though those voters who want to cast an anti-EU/Leave/Brexit vote are going with Brexit Party, leaving UKIP to flounder around near the bottom of the poll. All or almost all UKIP votes are going to Brexit Party. Most Eurosceptic former Conservative voters are also going to Brexit Party. This is going to be interesting.

Meanwhile, in less than 5 days, there are the local elections. There, the results may also be dramatic, but not to the same extent: Brexit Party not standing, UKIP not standing for most council seats (and at present has only 101 councillors out of a possible 20,712); only about a third of council seats being contested this year. Also, in many parts of the South of England, there is little “democratic choice”, with most candidates posted being Conservative, the Labour and LibDem parties not contesting all seats.

Update, 1 May 2019

8,804 local council and other seats are in contest tomorrow, 2 May 2019. The Conservatives are contesting 96% of those seats. Labour will be contesting the majority of them. The LibDems are contesting some. UKIP have 18 candidates standing. Brexit Party is not contesting these elections:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_local_elections

As far as the EU elections of 23 May are concerned, the latest polls show an irresistible rise for Brexit Party, which is running somewhere around 33% now; the corollary is UKIP on only about 4%, not helped by the bizarre behaviour of UKIP’s MEP candidate “Sargon of Akkad” (Carl Benjamin), the “alt-Right” vlogger standing for the South West England constituency.

Meanwhile…

This is incredible! I am not a “supporter” of Farage or “Brexit Party”, but this is the sort of reception that few get! Reminiscent of the Fuhrer (though without the depth or substance, of course). Brexit Party is on a roll! Only three weeks to go before the moment of truth (EU elections).

Update, 11 May 2019

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/11/poll-surge-for-farage-panic-conservatives-and-labour