Afternoon music
Tweets seen
Ha ha…
Starmer-stein is moving from being a mere clown to becoming a total joke.
Forget the non-existent “Russian connection”, and concentrate on the real one, the Israeli connection.
Davis also should know that the FSB is a security organization, not primarily a foreign intelligence agency (the main Russian one being the SVR).
I explored the Israel connection to Epstein (Jew) and Ghislaine Maxwell (half-Jew) years ago, and have continued to update: see
They need street-cleaners in Vienna…(Mandelson has toothbrush, and will travel…).
I still think that Starmer-stein will cling on until people start to stamp on his fingers; he will not let go of his own volition.
The ships referred to are naval minesweepers.
I do not doubt that they confessed (whether guilty or not).
Triggers a few memories.
When I lived in Almaty, Kazakhstan (1996-1997), I lived on Prospekt Lenina, one of the main boulevards. One day, I heard that an American who apparently lived across the (very wide) boulevard from me had been found tortured to death in an armchair in his own apartment.
At the time, I was sole expat lawyer for a British firm in Kazakhstan. The other office staff, however, about 5 people, were under a Kazakh ex-policeman turned fake lawyer (I am sure that he had either bought or forged his qualifications).
This individual in my office had links to the KNB, the renamed Kazakhstan KGB, and told me that the murdered American had been a gay who had picked up two men at a casino. They had murdered him, thinking that he had cash. They had also stolen items from the apartment.
What interested me most about the story, however, was the assertion that, because the KNB had apparently suspected the American (a supposed journalist, working for an obscure Texas-based journal, of which no-one had ever heard) of being a CIA operative, and so had bugged that man’s apartment (both audio and video). There was therefore both audio and video evidence of the torture and murder, though (sadly for the victim) not seen until the next day. Had the KNB been watching in real time, they would have been able to save the victim.
The murderers were, it seems, arrested the next day, and (of course) confessed. I imagine that they were shown the evidence, but would very likely have confessed even had there been no evidence at all. The Kazakh police are rather rough.
There were few foreigners resident in Almaty at that time. I was told that there were about 50 Brits, and quite a few more Americans (in a city of, even then, nearly 2M inhabitants). I doubt, though, whether I myself was suspected of being more than a boring/innocent expat lawyer, but who knows?
Incidentally, I went for a talk at the British Embassy there, not long afterwards, about “personal security”, given by a visiting expert from London. I was often at the Embassy anyway, had met the Ambassador and others several times (and it was walking distance from my home).
There were about 30 British people, businessmen mostly, assembled to hear the words of wisdom.
The “visiting expert” was a bit of an odd bod, a former member of British Army intelligence, and who wore a brown leather coat with a matching leather hat. He reminded me slightly of von Smallhausen in Allo Allo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Allo_%27Allo!; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_%27Allo_%27Allo!_characters#Herr_Engelbert_von_Smallhausen.
“Von Smallhausen” mentioned the murder of the American, cast doubt on the idea that he had been a journalist, and also mentioned the not dissimilar case of a Swiss banker, also murdered in the city not long before.
The “visiting expert” also said that most expats he had met on his brief visit had assured him that Almaty was safe for foreigners, yet he himself had visited a nightclub in the centre of the city a day or two previously and, on exiting the club, had tripped over a dead body.
I have to say that I never had serious trouble while I lived in Kazakhstan (1 year), and what minor trouble I did have was handled one way or another. There again, I usually avoid nightclubs, bars, and casinos in most parts of the world. In fact, unlike most foreigners in Almaty at that time, I not only travelled by car but also on foot and even by local bus, trolleybus, and tram (there was no Metro at the time). My then girlfriend remarked that I had to be the only foreigner in the city with a monthly public transport pass, though I had my own driver to take me to the office and back. I like to wander and explore alone sometimes.
Hard-to-believe news
Apparently, Tony Blair has been talking up the possibility of —of all people— Shabana Mahmood taking over from Keir Starmer, and so becoming, by default, Prime Minister! Jesus H. Christ! Has the woman not been over-promoted enough? She has already been appointed as Justice Secretary/Lord Chancellor and, since then, Home Secretary, despite having not practised at the Bar (beyond her one-year pupillage); she was a salaried “gopher” at a firm of solicitors for about 2 years after that.
Actually, I hope she does take over. That would sink the Labour Party completely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabana_Mahmood
More tweets seen
Thought out of season
“The Heart that battled here
The Heart that bled
Has conquered Death
And made Man’s peace with Heaven.”
[Friedrich Nietzsche..early poem on Easter]
More tweets
[“I’ve canvassed every day, several times a day, for over 2 weeks
Overwhelmingly positive
Just had my first negative reaction
Labour voter
On the border of Longsight
“fascist!” he shouted
Interesting
The last time I checked the party that backed cancelling elections, scrapping jury trials, two-tier justice, repression through non-crime hate incidents, investing more power in unelected Quangos, presiding over a regime that arrests comedians and parents for merely sharing their views online, and brands its political opponents “extremist” isn’t the Reform party
It’s the Labour Party
Vote Reform, Get Starmer Out, Put Gorton and Denton First“]
That sort of tribal Labourite is more funny than anything. I suppose that the best-known of that type would be the talking-head hypocrite and scribbler, Kevin Maguire [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Maguire_(journalist)].
Incidentally, I was just looking at Betfair Politics. I have found that the betting odds are poor predictors of by-election results, but for what it might be worth, the Greens are now favourite, and are marginally odds-on, Reform is now around 7/4, but Labour has now gone way out, and stands at around 17/2 (Advance UK 150/1, LibDems 500/1, Conservatives 1,000/1).
Ian Robert Millard 
The news bulletin from TASS about the alleged terrorists´ confession made me laugh heartily. I do agree with you, they “confessed” even if they were innocent. I am sure the Russian police/intelligence service is as brutal nowadays as in Soviet times. I would not like to be arrested by them. Having said that, being arrested in any Middle Eastern or Asian country must be a very unpleasant experience. People in those countries do not have the slightest regard for the life or the welfare of a person who has been arrested, even if the said person has not been proven guilty of any crime.
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Claudius:
Quite. You have, I think, read my blog post about when I was “not” arrested in Egypt in 1998. I have to admit that I was not generally treated badly by the Egyptian Army or the Mukhabarat, but maybe it was just my lucky day.
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William Cobben (1763-1835). A great Englishman who has been “forgotten” by the Establishment and the media. I wonder if it was because he wrote things like this:
“The debt, gentlemen, amounts to eight hundred millions of money … Let me remark that this debt, this horrible and incredible parcel of money has been lent to us; the fundholder, the money-broker, the stock-jobber, and Jews and all the vermin of this description who prey upon the vitals of the people, tell us they lent us this money; lent us what? Is it possible! What! The Jews are to lend us ten times as much money as ever was in this world! Where did they get it?”
The Autobiography of William Cobbett (London, 1957), p. 193
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Claudius:
Yes. Anyone who mentions “them” in any manner not effusively polite becomes an “unperson” these days. G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc etc; even Roald Dahl is in their gunsights now.
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